"But, you know, it is foreign owned."

"I don't know. It may be, but that is of no interest to us. If they furnish the money we need to finance the railroad connection at a decent rate, and the necessary amount to handle the business while we are paying it off, which they will, then where is our worry to come from? I don't care where the money comes from. The point is, should we take the venture, or go on the way we are now?"

"How much money will it require?" Howard fascinated me with the familiarity of his subject. He looked big enough to accomplish anything humanly possible.

"Well--to build the road and docks, and two deep-water vessels, will call for about a million and a half. We want to own every stick and nail. We now have a half million surplus."

"You will have to borrow a million then?"

"Yes--perhaps a little more."

"You have not met the man the bank will send to take your bonds?"

"No--but the bank is reliable and will make good--at least they must produce him before we start--that's what their underwriting means," he added.

"Howard, you have put up a hard problem. I might introduce the interrogation point and mislead you. I don't pretend to know much of business, especially of big business like yours--mine is looking for deluded men--sometimes women--who try to make violations of the Federal statutes profitable. All I can do is to give you my impression, and what facts I have that may bear on your case. Then you must decide for yourself." He nodded.

"I would like it better if you were hooked up with a straight American bank," I continued. "I mean one of the old-line National banks--but, after all, that may not be important. Perhaps you ought to let 'good enough' alone. You are making more money now than you can possibly spend. However, I can understand the lure of achievement--it's about all the real fun there is in living, without which a man is old at any stage, and would be better off dead and buried."

"That's it! You understand perfectly--make the so-called impossibility yield," he interrupted, his aggressive nose twitching, his eyes dilating with eagerness.

"Howard, there are three crises in the average life. The first one we all know as 'getting started.' This usually happens in the early twenties. You pa.s.sed yours just after leaving me on the wharf at Savannah. You say you cried and wished you were dead. Another one comes about ten years later. Its form and length varies with the individual. But for a time it's usually a pretty bad experience. Men not only wish they were dead, but would try suicide were they out-and-out cowards. They believe they will be consumed by the heat and enormity of things over which they have no control. This period is not unlike the refining process of iron ore into good steel, and its formation into a perfect-cutting, useful instrument. It is a process that is melting hot, two thousand degrees and a blast behind it. Then come the blows to make the shape; then the grindstone, and the whet-stone to put on the final polish. There is another period in the late forties that you need not be concerned about now. However, Cleveland is going to be elected--the first Democratic President since the war--and that event may disturb things for a time."

Byng glanced up searchingly. "Go on," said he, abruptly.

"I know you didn't expect a sermon but you may profit by it now; at least you will recall it afterward, and with some relief, if you follow the trend of affairs logically. When I go after a man I want to know his age the very first thing. You are about thirty now?"

"Yes, just about," there was in his eye a suspicion that I was raving, but that didn't keep me from finishing.

"And your wife is some over twenty--your partner a little older than you."

"Yes."

"You might do well to put up the sign, 'safety first,' though it's a lying thing where generally used. I advise that you trim sail and keep in deep water for a while. No use getting excited at your age. Let the situation be entirely clear when undertaking big financial stunts.

Wait until the new President is well seated in his chair. I look for squalls."

"It may be you are right--I will give your advice serious consideration," said he, soberly, but I felt that he was not convinced.

"I don't like to send you home with a wet blanket around you, but you are too big, and have too much courage to shrink from the truth. Be governed by foresight as well as hindsight. Wait and see how the times are going to be before you touch anything requiring big borrowing. So long, boy, I must be going."

"I knew you'd tell me what you thought," he exclaimed, wringing my hand good-bye.

I didn't see Howard Byng for many years after that.

CHAPTER X

I saw Byng's wife some three years later. I had heard disquieting news of Byng & Potter, now incorporated, but having confidence in Howard's ability to pull through almost anything, I dismissed the matter from my mind, for I was immersed with intensely interesting responsibilities of my own. Eight years' successful work in the Counterfeit Division had laid the foundation. I was now going to Europe in a more confidential capacity even than amba.s.sadors might enjoy! The evening before sailing I was entering my hotel, much preoccupied, when I was plucked anxiously by the sleeve. It took more than a glance to recognize Norma Byng.

"I have been looking for you a long time," she began, suppressing her intense excitement. "You--you--I want to see you so badly----"

She actually clung to me as I led her to a secluded spot in the ladies' parlor. Her excitement was unfeigned and I was anxious to learn what had happened to Howard Byng's beautiful wife. Manifestly she was in distress. Firm of step and courageous, she was still comely, but in severely plain attire. There was an absence of deep red in her lips, but the upward curves at the corners of her pretty mouth were there, contradicting the sadness and evident weariness of soul that showed in her eyes.

"Mr. Wood," she began, still struggling for calmness after we were seated, "I have fruitlessly used every means to find you, and to come upon you so unexpectedly quite upsets me. Perhaps--perhaps I was rude.

I believe--I know you are big enough to understand," she said, her eyes now devouringly aflame.

I must have looked greatly perplexed, and, before I could formulate a reply, she exclaimed:

"You are the one man Howard trusted implicitly--don't you know--haven't you heard?"

"No, I have heard nothing authentic of him since our dinner party at the Waldorf three years ago," I managed to say.

"Oh, most terrible things have happened since then. Will you--have you time for me to tell you?" she pleaded, her hands clasped imploringly.

"Can't we," she added, anxiously glancing over to a spooning couple by the window, "can't we go to some less public place?"

"It is time for dinner; if you will join me I will find a place where we will not be disturbed."

"Oh, I will be so glad! I _must_ tell someone who will understand and--and maybe you can do something," she added, searching my eyes with a quick glance.

It was early evening and I was able to get my favorite waiter and alcove seat in the dining-room.

"Now, Mrs. Byng----"

"Call me Norma--please do," she interrupted, "I like the way you p.r.o.nounce it, and I crave--I--I want some one to be fatherly to me--do you know, I have lost both my parents in the last three years? I--I am quite alone."

"Well, then, Norma, food both quiets and stimulates. First, let us eat, and while we do, forget yourself, and all of your troubles.

Afterward you can tell me your story--I am anxious to hear it. While we dine please relate some of the pleasant, delightful things, those for which you are thankful, that happened since I last saw you." I urged all this solicitously. I could not keep my eyes off the beautiful woman, beautiful indeed, though it was evident she had been through some terrible ordeal--the melting fires which refine, and make perfect.

"I do think your idea is more appropriate," she replied with a faint smile at my evident purpose. "It was like you to suggest it. Howard often told me you did things differently. But isn't it strange I was never asked that before?--and how sensible. Let me see--I will have to think. Perhaps, ungratefully I have never tried to enumerate them, and I might have done so with pleasure to myself." I didn't interrupt, for she was smiling now. "First of all--well, I should be truly thankful that I have good health."

"Fine!" I exclaimed, "that's worth a million, and there's a hundred thousand women who would pay that for health and another million for your wonderful hair!"

"Perhaps so--then I have gainful employment compelling attention to others' problems which has taught me values in useful effort, brought me a few friends, uninfluenced by mere money. I should have perished without them," she added, yet inclined to revert.

"That's splendid, go ahead," I encouraged, trying to fathom the nature of Byng's disaster.

"And--I have not lost faith in human kind, and still believe the world mostly good."

"That's still greater; you will make yourself happy yet. Nothing beats invoicing our blessings occasionally."

"Then you know, a short time after your visit there came a little girl and the year that followed I could not have been happier, but----" and her lips began to quiver and she looked at me imploringly.

"There you go: remember only pleasant things yet," I cautioned.

"That's so--that's so--well, she was christened Norma, but Howard always called her 'Little Jim'; said that was the kind of a name you would like. At the christening you were named her G.o.dfather."