CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

The Departure of Uncle Peter--And Some German Philosophy

The Bineses, with the exception of Psyche, were at breakfast a week later. Miss Bines had been missing since the day that Mr. and Mrs.

Cecil G. H. Mauburn had left for Montana City to put the Bines home in order.

Uncle Peter and Mrs. Bines had now determined to go, leaving Percival to follow when he had closed his business affairs.

"It's like starting West again to make our fortune," said Uncle Peter.

He had suffered himself to regain something of his old cheerfulness of manner.

"I wish you two would wait until they can get the car here, and go back with me," said Percival. "We can go back in style even if we didn't save much more than a get-away stake."

But his persuasions were unavailing.

"I can't stand it another day," said Mrs. Bines, "and those letters keep coming in from poor suffering people that haven't heard the news."

"I'm too restless to stay," declared Uncle Peter. "I declare, with spring all greenin' up this way I'd be found campin' up in Central Park some night and took off to the calaboose. I just got to get out again where you can feel the wind blow and see a hundred miles and don't have to dodge horseless horse-cars every minute. It's a wonder one of 'em ain't got me in this town. You come on in the car, and do the style fur the family. One of them common Pullmans is good enough fur Marthy and me. And besides, I got to get Billy Brue back. He's goin' plumb daft lookin' night and day fur that man that got his thirty dollars and his breastpin. He says there'll be an ambulance backed up at the spot where he meets him--makes no difference if it's right on Fifth Avenue.

Billy's kind of nearsighted at that, so I'm mortal afraid he'll make a mistake one of these nights and take some honest man's money and trinkets away from him."

"Well, here's a _Sun_ editorial to take back with us," said Percival; "you remember we came East on one." He read aloud:

"The great fall in the price of copper, Western Trolley, and cordage stocks has ruined thousands of people all over this country. These losses are doubtless irreparable so far as the stocks in question are concerned. The losers will have to look elsewhere for recovery. That they will do so with good courage is not to be doubted. It might be argued with reasonable plausibility that Americans are the greatest fatalists in the world; the readiest to take chances and the least given to whining when the cards go against them.

"A case in point is that of a certain Western family whose fortune has been swept away by the recent financial hurricane. If ever a man liked to match with Destiny, not 'for the beers,' but for big stakes, the young head of the family in question appears to have been that man. He persisted in believing that the power and desire of the rich men controlling these three stocks were great enough to hold their securities at a point far above their actual value. In this persistence he displayed courage worthy of a better reward. A courage, moreover --the gambler's courage--that is typically American. Now he has had a plenty of that pleasure of losing which, in Mr. Fox's estimation, comes next to the pleasure of winning.

"From the point of view of the political economist or the moralist, thrift, saving, and contentment with a modest competence are to be encouraged, and the propensity to gamble is to be condemned. We stand by the copy-book precepts. Yet it is only honest to confess that there is something of this young American's love for chances in most of us.

American life is still so fluid, the range of opportunity so great, the national temperament so buoyant, daring, and hopeful, that it is easier for an American to try his luck again than to sit down snugly and enjoy what he has. The fun and the excitement of the game are more than the game. There are Americans and plenty of them who will lose all they have in some magnificent scheme, and make much less fuss about it than a Paris shopkeeper would over a bad twenty-franc piece.

"Our disabled young Croesus from the West is a luminous specimen of the type. The country would be less interesting without his kind, and, on the whole, less healthy--for they provide one of the needed ferments.

May the young man make another fortune in his own far West--and come once more to rattle the dry bones of our Bourse!"

"He'll be too much stuck on Montana by the time he gets that fortune,"

observed Uncle Peter.

"I will _that,_ Uncle Peter. Still it's pleasant to know we've won their good opinion."

"Excuse me fur swearin', Marthy," said Uncle Peter, turning to Mrs.

Bines, "but he can win a better opinion than that in Montana fur a d.a.m.n sight less money."

"That editor is right," said Mrs. Bines, "what he says about American life being 'fluid.' There's altogether too much drinking goes on here, and I'm glad my son quit it."

Percival saw them to the train.

"Take care of yourself," said Uncle Peter at parting. "You know I ain't any good any more, and you got a whole family, includin' an Englishman, dependin' on you--we'll throw him on the town, though, if he don't take out his first papers the minute I get there."

His last shot from the rear platform was:

"Change your name back to 'Pete,' son, when you get west of Chicago.

'Tain't anything fancy, but it's a crackin' good business name fur a hustler!"

"All right, Uncle Peter,--and I hope I'll have a grandson that thinks as much of it as I do of yours."

When they had gone, he went back to the work of final adjustment. He had the help of Coplen, whom they had sent for. With him he was busy for a week. By lucky sales of some of the securities that had been hypothecated they managed to save a little; but, on the whole, it was what Percival described it, "a lovely autopsy."

At last the vexatious work was finished, and he was free again. At the end of the final day's work he left the office of Fouts in Wall Street, and walked up Broadway. He went slowly, enjoying the freedom from care.

It was the afternoon of a day when the first summer heat had been felt, and as he loitered before shop windows or walked slowly through that street where all move quickly and most very hurriedly, a welcome little breeze came up from the bay to fan him and encourage his spirit of leisure.

At Union Square, when he would have taken a car to go the remainder of the distance, he saw Shepler, accompanied by Mrs. Van Geist and Miss Milbrey, alight from a victoria and enter a jeweller's.

He would have pa.s.sed on, but Miss Milbrey had seen him, and stood waiting in the doorway while Shepler and Mrs. Van Geist went on into the store.

"Mr. Bines--I'm _so_ glad!"

She stood, flushed with pleasure, radiant in stuff of filmy pink, with little flecks at her throat and waist of the first tender green of new leaves. She was unaffectedly delighted to see him.

"You are Miss Spring?" he said when she had given him her hand--"and you've come into all your mother had that was worth inheriting, haven't you?"

"Mr. Bines, shall we not see you now? I wanted so much to talk with you when I heard everything. Would it be impertinent to say I sympathised with you?"

He looked over her shoulder, in where Shepler and Mrs. Van Geist were inspecting a tray of jewels.

"Of course not impertinent--very kind--only I'm really not in need of any sympathy at all. You won't understand it; but we don't care so much for money in the West--for the loss of it--not so much as you New Yorkers would. Besides we can always make a plenty more."

The situation was, emphatically, not as he had so often dreamed it when she should marvel, perhaps regretfully, over his superiority to her husband as a money-maker. His only relief was to belittle the importance of his loss.

"Of course we've lost everything, almost--but I've not been a bit downcast about it. There's more where it came from, and no end of fun going after it. I'm looking forward to the adventures, I can tell you.

And every one will be glad to see me there; they won't think the less of me, I a.s.sure you, because I've made a fluke here!"

"Surely, Mr. Bines, no one here could think less of you. Indeed, I think more of you. I think it's fine and big to go back with such courage. Do you know, I wish I were a man--I'd show them!"

"Really, Miss Milbrey--"

He looked over her shoulder again, and saw that Shepler was waiting for her.

"I think your friends are impatient."

"They can wait. Mr. Bines, I wonder if you have quite a correct idea of all New York people."

"Probably not; I've met so few, you know."

"Well, of course,--but of those you've met?"

"You can't know what my ideas are."