The Last Drive and Other Stories
- Автор: Стаут Рекс Тодхантер
- Год: 2015
- Язык: английский
- Год: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
- ISBN: 978-1-5040-1134-1
- Жанр: Классические детективы
Электронная книга - «The Last Drive and Other Stories». Краткое содержание книги:
Cyrus Hamlin sat at his breakfast table ostensibly reading the Morning Clarion, but in reality watching his son James. James was reading the Morning News. He was reading with an intense avidity; his eyes shone with eagerness; his cheeks were flushed with excitement. For a full week this phenomena had been regularly recurrent, and Hamlin Senior was beginning to grow uneasy. There could no longer be any doubt that something had aroused James’ interest. This was incredible. James the silent, James the incompetent, James the hopeless!
James had never done anything exactly wrong. The correctness of his morals was unquestioned, nor did he seem to be without a certain ability. His university career had been, if not brilliant, at least respectable, and had led his father to entertain high hopes for the future. He had been placed in a confidential position in the office of Hamlin & Company, and the gods began to grin. His first achievement was the dumping of a fifty thousand dollar shipment into the maw of Hilton’s of St. Louis, who failed for a million three days later. He next proceeded to get into a very righteous and somewhat heated argument with Captain Voorhees of the navy, which resulted in the loss of the government contract and its acquisition by Hamlin & Company’s most hated rival. This — all in a single month — was too much for Hamlin Senior. More in sorrow than in anger, he ejected his son from the home offices and sent him up to the mill somewhere in Massachusetts to learn the business from the ground up.
At the mill James outdid himself. He hadn’t been there a week when he discovered that the mill hands were not being treated as a twentieth century mill hand should be treated. He protested to the foreman, and was told to mind his own business. He then expressed his views — somewhat forcibly — to the superintendent, who told him that he would look into the matter, and wrote to the elder Hamlin complaining of the invidious activity of the company’s heir.
Within two days James got a letter from his father repeating the foreman’s advice, with one or two added observations, unpleasantly blunt. James, far from succumbing to this show of authority, decided to manage the affair for himself, since he could get no help from the proper sources, and accordingly organized the employees into a union, arranged a strike, and proceeded with such energy that old Hamlin himself was forced to come up from New York to settle. He acceded to all the strikers’ demands but one, that his own son be made superintendent.
Feeling perhaps that he had sufficiently distinguished himself for a man barely twenty-four, James, after the settlement of the strike, had allowed himself to sink into a state of innocuous desuetude. By dint of continuous application and unequalled opportunity, he became in a year the laziest man in New York, and acquired — or assumed — an attitude of utter indifference to the practical affairs of life. Indeed, this indifference reached a degree that alarmed his father almost to the point of anger. “Is it possible,” thought the elder Hamlin, “that the fool is an idiot?” But having in mind the cost and outcome of James’ previous efforts, he forbore to disturb the calm, and allowed himself a polite smile when James took occasion to make observation on the potential power of a dormant intellect.
Thus James developed a personality that deserved to be called the very flower, the last expression, of indifference. He was not exactly melancholy; his real lack was enthusiasm, not interest. Still, it cannot be denied that gradually he began to look and act more like a monk and less like a man than is allowable in one who is expected to perpetuate a name and an enterprise.
After this explanation, you will easily understand why Hamlin Senior felt a positive thrill when his son came to the breakfast table six mornings in succession with a springy step and a bright eye, and eagerly devoured all the newspapers in sight before he would even so much as look at his grapefruit and jelly. Clearly, there was something in the wind. The first morning, Hamlin Senior had thought little of it; it might be a murder, a race — any one of those passing sensations that are dished up for the daily entertainment of the people. On the second morning he was mildly curious, and on the third he decided that it was unquestionably a divorce, and that James had made a somewhat late discovery of the fact of sex. But divorce suits rarely last six days, and by this time the elder Hamlin was frankly astonished.
As James sat reading the Morning News, an expression of firmness came over his face. Hamlin Senior eyed him silently. The young man turned to the editorial page, glanced over it for a minute, then carefully folded the paper and laid it beside his plate. Then he arose, placed his hands, palms down, on the table after the manner of an orator, and said in an impressive tone:
“Father, I’ve decided to enter politics.”
Hamlin Senior sat up straight in his chair, while the Morning Clarion fluttered from his hand to the floor. “Good God!” he exclaimed weakly.
James, not heeding the interruption, continued:
“Of course it is unnecessary for me to state on which side I intend to align myself. I shall be the champion of the people — the downtrodden masses — and against the base conspiracy of the bosses, of which I have been reading. The time has come when the predatory interests—”
Hamlin Senior waved a hand for silence. “James,” he said, “as a father, it is my duty to tell you that you’re a blamed fool. Predatory jackrabbits! What do you know about politics?”
“Enough,” said James, with the air of a statesman who is considering the advisability of entering upon a dangerous war. “I assure you, enough. It is no wonder the people have been powerless to assert and maintain their rights, lacking, as they do, an able champion. I intend,” he glared at his father, “I intend that they shall no longer be without one.”
“And you, I suppose, are it?” asked his father.
James, being dreadfully in earnest, ignored the sarcasm. “If I am honored by being chosen as their leader, I shall not flinch,” he said resolutely. “The industrial pirates must be shown that it is the people who rule. Of course, I make no allusion to your personal — er — record.”
“Thank you. And what is your present ambition?”
“I shall begin in my own district, where I shall organize the masses. Reform, like charity, begins at home.”
“I see. And what about the — er — the sinews?”
“Oh, as to that,” said James loftily, “I shall of course expect your financial assistance.”
“Of course,” said the elder Hamlin, rising from his chair and starting to leave the room. “Of course — I don’t think. Your damned insolence is really admirable. If you think that I — that you — if you think—” He was still spluttering with wrath when the door closed after him, leaving James standing in a Bismarckian attitude which was still very grand and solemn, despite the fact that his only audience was a mangled grapefruit and an empty chair.
The scene between father and son was in itself really unimportant. It has been recounted in order to show the depth and strength of James’ purpose, in which he could not be made to falter even by the stern refusal of an angry parent. He knew very well that the people were being exploited by selfish interests — as who does not — and he knew also that the people, being honest, needed only honest leaders. And modest as he was, he felt pretty well assured that he could select one of the chosen without straying far afield.
He was going, he told himself, to build his campaign on the inherent good sense of the people. His disinterestednesss was really astonishing. He not only said that he wanted nothing for himself — he meant it; or at least he believed that he meant it, which is perhaps as near as a human is ever allowed to approach godliness. But the wonderful thing about it is that, for all his high-flown generalities, he kept his personal aspirations strictly within the limits of common sense.