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Page 36
"Affectionately,
"Aunt Clara.
"P.S.--It has rained hard for two days."
There it was! Money _came_ to you. Federal Express was only a name to
him; he had written it sometimes at Breede's dictation. But his Aunt
Clara was old enough to know about such things, and he would follow her
advice, though being a director of an express company seemed as
unexciting as it was doubtless respectable: what he had at times been
wild enough to dream was that he should be the principal owner of a
major-league baseball club, and travel with the club--see every game! If
he should, temporarily, become the director of an express company, he
would have it plainly understood that he might resign at any moment.
Night and morning he surveyed himself in the glass. Not in the way of
ordinary human conceit; he was clear sighted enough as to the
pulchritude of his present encasement; but with the eyes of the young
who see visions. Raptly scrutinizing his meagre form he chanted a line
of verse that seemed apposite:
"_Build thou more stately mansions, O my soul!_"
He was already persuaded that his next incarnation would enrich the
world with something far more stately than the mansion that he at
present occupied; something on the Gordon Dane order, he suspected. And
it was not too soon to begin laying those unseen foundations--to think
the thought that must come before the thing. He was veritably a king,
yet for a time must he masquerade as a wage-slave, a serf to Breede, and
an inferior of Bulger's, considered as a mere spectacle.
He began to word long conversations with these two; noiseless
conversations, be it understood, in which the snappy dialogue went
unuttered. His sarcasm to Bulger in the matter of that ten-dollar loan
was biting, ruthless, witty, invariably leaving the debtor in direst
confusion with nothing to retort. Bean always had the last word, both
with Bulger and Breede, turning from them with easy contempt.
He was less hard on Breede than on Bulger, because of the ball game. A
man who could behave like that in the presence of baseball must have
good in him. Nevertheless, in this silent way, he curtly apprised Breede
of his intentions about working beyond stipulated hours, and when Breede
was rash enough to adopt a tone of bluster, Bean silenced him with a
magnificent "I can imagine nothing of less consequence!"
He carried this silent warfare into public conveyances and when stout
aggressive men glared at him because he had a seat he quickly and
wittily reduced them to such absurdity in the public eye that they had
to flee in impotent rage. The once modest street row with a bully twice
his size was enlarged in cast. There were now, as befitted a king, two
bullies, who writhed in pain, each with a broken arm, while the slight
but muscular youth with a knowledge of jiu-jitsu walked coolly off,
flecking dust from one of his capable shoulders. Sometimes he paused
long enough to explain the affair, in a few dignified words, to an
admiring policeman who found it difficult to believe that this stripling
had vanquished two such powerful brutes. Sometimes another act was
staged in which he conferred his card upon the amazed policeman and
later explained the finesse of his science to him, thereby winning his
deathless gratitude. He became quite chummy with this officer and was
never to be afraid of anything any more.
He glowed from this new exercise. He became more witty, more masterful,
while the repartee of his adversaries sank to wretched piffle. He met
disaster only once. That was when his conscience began to hurt him after
a particularly bitter assault on Bulger in which the latter had been
more than usually contemptible in the matter of the overdue debt. He
felt that he had really been too hard on the fellow. And Bulger, who
must have been psychically gifted himself, came over from his typewriter
at that moment and borrowed an additional five without difficulty. In
later justification, Bean reflected that he would almost certainly have
refused this second loan had it not been for his softened mood of the
moment. Still he was glad that, with his instinctive secrecy he had kept
from Bulger any knowledge of his new fortune. With Bulger aware that he
had thousands of dollars in the bank, something told him that
distressing complications would have ensued.
He debated several days about this money. He resolved, at length, that a
thousand dollars should be devoted to the worthy purpose of living up to
his new condition. A thousand dollars would, for the present, give him
an adequate sensation of wealth. Three thousand more must be paid to
Professor Balthasar when his secret agents brought It from Its
long-hidden resting-place. Suppose the professor pleaded unexpected
outlays, officials not too easily bribed or something, and demanded a
further sum? At once, in a crowded street, he brought about a heated
interview with the professor, in which the seer was told that a bargain
was a bargain, and that if he had thought Bean was a man to stand
nonsense of any sort he was indeed wildly mistaken. Bean was going to
hold him to the exact sum, and his parting sting was that the professor
had better get a new lot of controls if his old ones hadn't been able to
tell him this. After he had cooled a little he reflected that if there
were really any small sums the professor would be out of pocket, he
would of course not be mean.
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