He was on the ground, and Marston lifting the whip to touch the horse, when he asked: "Say, before you go--is there any danger in leaving off the conductors?"Marston was raised on mules, and he could not overcome a vehement distrust of electricity. "Well," said he, "I guess you want the cold facts.
The children are almighty thick down on Third Street, and children are always trying to see how near they can come to being killed, you know, sir; and then, the old women like to come and stand on the track and ask questions of the motorneer on the other track, so that the car coming down has a chance to catch 'em. The two together keep the conductors on the jump!""Is that so?" said Armorer, musingly; "well, I guess you'd better close with that insurance man and get the papers made out before we run the new way.""If we ever do run!" muttered the superintendent to himself as he drove away.
Armorer ran his sharp eye over the buildings of the Lossing Art Furniture Manufacturing Company, from the ugly square brick box that was the nucleus--the egg, so to speak--from which the great concern had been hatched, to the handsome new structures with their great arched windows and red mortar.
"Pretty property, very pretty property," thought Armorer;"wonder if that story Marston tells is true!" The story was to the effect that a few weeks before his last sickness the older Lossing had taken his son to look at the buildings, and said, "Harry, this will all be yours before long.
It is a comfort to me to think that every workman I have is the better, not the worse, off for my owning it; there's no blood or dirt on my money; and I leave it to you to keep it clean and to take care of the men as well as the business.""Now, wasn't he a d---- fool!" said Armorer, cheerfully, taking out his note-book to mark, "_See abt road M--D-- _"And he went in. Harry greeted him with exceeding cordiality and a fine blush. Armorer explained that he had come to speak to him about the proposed street-car ordinances;he (Armorer) always liked to deal with principals and without formality; now, couldn't they come, representing the city and the company, to some satisfactory compromise?
Thereupon he plunged into the statistics of the earnings and expenses of the road (with the aid of his note-book), and made the absolute necessity of retrenchment plain.
Meanwhile, as he talked he studied the attentive listener before him;and Harry, on his part, made quite as good use of his eyes.
Armorer saw a tall, athletic, fair young man, very carefully, almost foppishly dressed, with bright, steady blue eyes and a firm chin, but a smile under his mustache like a child's;it was so sunny and so quick. Harry saw a neat little figure in a perfectly fitting gray check travelling suit, with a rose in the buttonhole of the coat lapel. Armorer wore no jewellery except a gold ring on the little finger of his right hand, from which he had taken the glove the better to write.
Harry knew that it was his dead wife's wedding-ring;and noticed it with a little moving of the heart.
The face that he saw was pale but not sickly, delicate and keen.
A silky brown mustache shot with gray and a Van-dyke beard hid either the strength or the weakness of mouth and chin.
He looked at Harry with almond-shaped, pensive dark eyes, so like the eyes that had shone on Harry's waking and sleeping dreams for months that the young fellow felt his heart rise again.
Armorer ended by asking Harry (in his most winning manner)to help him pull the ordinance out of the fire. "It would be,"he said, impressively, "a favor he should not forget!""And you must know, Mr. Armorer," said Harry, in a dismal tone at which the president chuckled within, "that there is no man whose favor I would do so much to win!""Well, here's your chance!" said Armorer.
Harry swung round in his chair, his clinched fists on his knee.
He was frowning with eagerness, and his eyes were like blue steel.
"See here, Mr. Armorer," said he, "I am frank with you.
I want to please you, because I want to ask you to let me marry your daughter. But I CAN'T please you, because I am mayor of this town, and I don't dare to let you dismiss the conductors.
I don't DARE, that's the point. We have had four children killed on this road since electricity was put in.""We have had forty killed on one street railway I know; what of it?
Do you want to give up electricity because it kills children?""No, but look here! the conductors lessen the risk. A lady I know, only yesterday, had a little boy going from the kindergarten home, nice little fellow only five years old ----""She ought to have sent a nurse with a child five years old, a baby!"cried Armorer, warmly.
"That lady," answered Harry, quietly, "goes without any servant at all in order to keep her two children at the kindergarten;and the boy's elder sister was ill at home. The boy got on the car, and when he got off at the crossing above his house, he started to run across; the other train-car was coming, the little fellow didn't notice, and ran to cross; he stumbled and fell right in the path of the coming car!""Where was the conductor? He didn't seem much good!""They had left off the conductor on that line.""Well, did they run over the boy? Why haven't I been informed of the accident?""There was no accident. A man on the front platform saw the boy fall, made a flying leap off the moving car, fell, but scrambled up and pulled the boy off the track. It was sickening; I thought we were both gone!""Oh, you were the man?"
"I was the man; and don't you see, Mr. Armorer, why I feel strongly on the subject? If the conductor had been on, there wouldn't have been any occasion for any accident.""Well, sir, you may be assured that we will take precautions against any such accidents. It is more for our interest than anyone's to guard against them. And I have explained to you the necessity of cutting down our expense list.""That is just it, you think you have to risk our lives to cut down expenses; but we get all the risk and none of the benefits.
