The Mystery of Metropolisville | Page 7

variations, generally adding something like this: "The day I went to
look at that claim, to see whether the security was good or not, I got

caught in the rain. I expected it would kill me. Well, sir, I was taken
that night with a pain--just here--and it ran through the lung to the point
of the shoulder-blade--here. I had to get my feet into a tub of water and
take some brandy. I'd a had pleurisy if I'd been in any other country but
this. I tell you, nothing saved me but the oxygen in this air. There!
there's a forty that I lent a hundred dollars on at five per cent a month
and six per cent after maturity, with a waiver in the mortgage. The day
I came here to see this I was nearly dead. I had a--"
Just here the fat gentleman would get desperate, and, by way of
preventing the completion of the dolorous account, would break out
with: "That's Sokaska, the new town laid out by Johnson--that hill over
there, where you see those stakes. I bought a corner-lot fronting the
public square, and a block opposite where they hope to get a factory.
There's a brook runs through the town, and they think it has water
enough and fall enough to furnish a water-power part of the day, during
part of the year, and they hope to get a factory located there. There'll be
a territorial road run through from St. Paul next spring if they can get a
bill through the legislature this winter. You'd best buy there."
"I never buy town lots," said Minorkey, coughing despairingly, "never!
I run no risks. I take my interest at three and five per cent a month on a
good mortgage, with a waiver, and let other folks take risks."
But the hopeful fat gentleman evidently took risks and slept soundly.
There was no hypothetical town, laid out hypothetically on paper, in
whose hypothetical advantages he did not covet a share.
"You see," he resumed, "I buy low--cheap as dirt--and get the rise.
Some towns must get to be cities. I have a little all round, scattered here
and there. I am sure to have a lucky ticket in some of these lotteries."
[Illustration: MR. MINORKEY AND THE FAT GENTLEMAN.]
Mr. Minorkey only coughed and shook his head despondently, and said
that "there was nothing so good as a mortgage with a waiver in it. Shut
down in short order if you don't get your interest, if you've only got a
waiver. I always shut down unless I've got five per cent after maturity.

But I have the waiver in the mortgage anyhow."
As the stage drove on, up one grassy slope and down another, there was
quite a different sort of a conversation going on in the other end of the
coach. Charlton found many things which suggested subjects about
which he and Miss Minorkey could converse, notwithstanding the
strange contrast in their way of expressing themselves. He was full of
eagerness, positiveness, and a fresh-hearted egoism. He had an opinion
on everything; he liked or disliked everything; and when he disliked
anything, he never spared invective in giving expression to his
antipathy. His moral convictions were not simply strong--they were
vehement. His intellectual opinions were hobbies that he rode under
whip and spur. A theory for everything, a solution of every difficulty, a
"high moral" view of politics, a sharp skepticism in religion, but a
skepticism that took hold of him as strongly as if it had been a faith. He
held to his non credo with as much vigor as a religionist holds to his
creed.
Miss Minorkey was just a little irritating to one so enthusiastic. She
neither believed nor disbelieved anything in particular. She liked to talk
about everything in a cool and objective fashion; and Charlton was
provoked to find that, with all her intellectual interest in things, she had
no sort of personal interest in anything. If she had been a disinterested
spectator, dropped down from another sphere, she could not have
discussed the affairs of this planet with more complete impartiality, not
to say indifference. Theories, doctrines, faiths, and even moral duties,
she treated as Charlton did beetles; ran pins through them and held
them up where she could get a good view of them--put them away as
curiosities. She listened with an attention that was surely flattering
enough, but Charlton felt that he had not made much impression on her.
There was a sort of attraction in this repulsion. There was an
excitement in his ambition to impress this impartial and judicial mind
with the truth and importance of the glorious and regenerating views he
had embraced. His self-esteem was pleased at the thought that he
should