CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY PS 1117.M2™" ""'"*"'">' Library Cornell University Library The original of tliis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022459329 THE MAMMON OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS HJALMAR HJORTII BOYESON AUTHOR OF "GUNNAR," "idyls of NORWAY," "THE LIOHT OF HKR COUNIE- NANCE," ETC., ETC. New York. JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 1.50 WOKTH ST., COK. MISSION PLACE Copyright, 1891, BY UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY. PEEFAOE. A GOOD friend of mine, who has read this novel in man- uscript, is of opinion that every book of any conse- quence should have a preface. A prefatory flourish of bugles announcing the approach of the procession arouses attention, he thinks, and tunes the mind into a mood of expectancy. Now if he had offered to sound this heraldic blast for me he would have relieved me of the embar- rassment of blowing my own trumpet. If I buckle on my brazen armor of self-esteem, and with naive frankness blare forth my conviction that this is a very remarkable novel, of the realistic kind, I shall challenge the pug- nacity of the whole field of critics, and run the risk of be- ing thrown by some particularly adventurous free lance. Wisliing to avoid this risk I will omit the trumpets, and for the sake of appearances sing small : "Pastorem, Tityre, pingues Pascere oportet oves, deductum dicere carmen." In fact, this is partly a pastoral narrative, devoid of sen- sational incidents, and it behooves me to content myself with a very slender prefatory note. What I have chiefly at heart is to guard against misap- prehension. I have used a definite locality which many, no doubt, will recognize (it is impossible for me to write a novel without having a distinct and real topography in my mind), and to some the conclusion may not appear un- warranted that my characters have also their originals among the inhabitants of that region. It is this inference I wish to guard against. ' My life and daily intercourse with people supply me with constant hints, which form, as it were, nuclei, lying dormant for a period in my mind, drawing from my experience' and observation such nour- ishment as may prove prganically assimilable, until they 4 PREFACE. are ready to step forth as characters into the light of pub- licity. But it never occurs to me to put an acquaintance bodily into a book with his appearance, peculiarities, and the circumstances of his life. I have known during the tvvent\'-two years of my sojourn in the United States four or five founders and conspicuous benefactors of institu- tions of learning, and they all had certain pervasive traits in common which constitute a type. This type, which I have endeavored to present in the Honorable Obed Lar- kin, has borrowed something from all of them, but is not a copy of any of them. If they were all to sue me for libel, I should have to plead equally guilty and equally innocent toward all. My one endeavor in this book has been to depict per- sons and conditions which are profoundly and typically American. I have disregarded all romantic traditions, and simply asked myself in every instance, not whether it was amusing, but whether it was true to the logic of real- ity — true in color and tone to the American sky, the Amer- ican soil, the American character. - Columbia College, New York, May, 1891. THE Mammon of Unrighteousness. CHAPTER I. A KEYNOTE. " I mean to be true to myself — true to my convictions," ejaculated Alexander Larlcin, impetuously, and the echo flung back the words with the same impetuosity from the rock opposite. " I mean to succeed," said Horace, his brother, and the echo immediately asserted, with the same positiveness, that it meant to succeed. " Do let us row further up the lake, where we can escape that ridiculous echo," said Alexander, striking the water with his oars. " All right," assented liis brother. They rowed rapidly, for about fifteen minutes, past green, smiling slopes, covered with wheat -fields and meadow -land, intersected here and there by deep, pine- clad ravines, through which swollen creeks poured their muddy waters into the lake. It was one of the minor geological basins, in the middle of the State of New York, - thirty or forty miles long, and but a few miles in width. The lake which received the surface water of this basin was also long and narrow ; but the creeks, three of which had united at its southern end, were, with their deposits of mud, forming a fertile but malarious delta, which was constantly encroaching upon the territory of the lake. It was upon this delta that the town of Torryville was situ- ated. The two brothers, as they skimmed along over the shin- ing waters, paid little heed to the beauty of the landscape, 6 THE MAMMON with its softly undulating lines against the blue horizon. They were both intent upon the subject of their late dis- pute, and each was thinking of the argument with which he meant to checkmate the other, when the discussion was to be resumed. , Horace, the elder, was tall and strongly built, with a large, bony frame, and a countenance which expressed shrewdness and determination. It was not a handsome face, but it was strongly individualized and interesting. It was ■ the face of a clever man— a face which bore the impress of a self-reliant spirit. There was a look of shrewd observa- tion in his gray eyes, and in their glance something dis- respectful and good-natured, which was distinctly Ameri- can. The mouth was rudely drawn and partly covered by a coarse, reddish-brown mustache, innocent of all orna- mental purpose. The chin was strong, self-assertive, ar- gumentEtfive, and was often thrust forward with a pecul- iarly combative air. The brown hair, approaching the color kriown as ashy-brown, was rather short, parted on the left side, and coarse as a brush. The whole face was, perhaps, a trifle crude, and, to a fastidious person, not wliolly agreeable, but it was a face which took hold of you — which it was difficult to forget. It was full of force and rude energy. It was said in the village that Horace Lar- kin was a thunderin' smart chap ; and no one who saw him would be apt to dispute this verdict. Alexander Larkin, who was two years younger than his brother, was slighter in figure and more delicately made. There was something frank, open, and youthfully charm- ing in his appearance, which Horace entirely lacked. Out of his clear blue eyes spoke a soul in which there was no guile. In the soft contour of his face, in the fresh, handsome curves of his lips, in the blondness of his hair — nay, in his whole personality — there was something chaste, and sweet, and virginal. It was impossible not to like him, as one likes springjcand youth, and all things fair and per- ishable. That way of looking out into life thi^ugh a pair of unclouded blue eyes, with frank curiosity and delight, somehow arouses a pathetic pleasure, tempered with com- passion, in hearts which ^ave long since forfeited this privilege. You would not for the world disillusionize the dear boy ; life will soon make havoc of his illusions. In youth it is, after all, pardonable to have no very well-de- fined individuality — to swim joyously in the broad, uni- versal current, withoiit haying any urgent cause for di- OF Ul^RIGHTEOUSNESS. ) 7 verging. ' It was so with Alexander Larkin ; he was what most young- men are whom corruption has not touched ; only he was rather handsomer and cleverer than the ma- jority. The two brothers had gradually struck out into the mid- dle of the lake, where tlie echo from the shores would not mock their conversation. "You were saying," began Aleck, as he was familiarly called, leaning forward and resting on his oars ; " you were saying that you meant to succeed." "Yes," replied Horace, "and you were saying that you did not." "I beg your pardon," exclaimed the younger brother, with animation ; " I said nothing of the kind. I said I meant to be true to my convictions." "Well, it amounts to tiie same thing." " Of course, I know you say that to tease me. But, seriously, Horace, for a man of twenty-eight, you are an inveterate cynic. You have no poetry in you, no ideals." " You could not pay me a greater compliment. Life's substance is prose, and it is this prose I mean to master." "Life's substance is just as much poetry. It is only to the average unideal man that it looks like prose." "The average unideal man you'will usually find to be the successful man, at least in a democracy. The world is made by average men for average men. Civilization cripples great characters and lifts up the small, in order to strengthen the average. This American democracy of ours — what is it but the triumph of the average ? Look at the men we send into public life now! Compare them to those we sent fifty or a hundred years ago ; compare their very faces, and you see how the type has degener- ated. What does that mean, if not that the average fool who formerly took pride in being represented by a wiser man, now prefers to be represented by as great a fool as liimself? The average American, fift^^ years ago, was poor, and he* paid the homage of admiration to greatness, moral and intellectual ; but now his prosperity has turned his brain ; he feels big enough to kick up his heels on his own account, and he dislikes the man whom he suspects of being his superior." "I should be ashamed if I were you," exclaimed Aleck, with youthful ardor, " to be slandering my country." " That depends upon what State we are talking in,'' said Horace, dryly ; " as you know, slander in New York is g THE MAMMON actionable only in case it is a lie ; while in New Jersey it is actionable if it is of a derogatory character, whether it be true or false. I am not in tlie least ashamed of slandering my country in the New Jersey sense." Aleck listened with visible impatience, took a few strokes with tlie oars, then lifted them again and looked intently at his brother, who had, in the meanwhile, lighted a cigar and faced him. " In what you have just been saying," he began, "you have sealej your own doom. You certainly are above the average, intellectually, whatever you may be morally ; and you have the ambition to distinguish yourself in pub- lic life. I should think your chances were poor if Ameri- cans only chose fools to represent them." The elder brother blew a couple of rings of smoke into the still air, and smiled as only a strong man smiles. It was a smile full of amusement and impregnable self-confi- dence. "My dear fellow," he said; "3-ou go too fast. Let us admit, for the sake of argument, tiiat I am no fool. How do you suppose a clever man would set about winning public favor? By demonstrating his cleverness J By in- advertently letting his wisdom out of the bag, and impres- sing his countrymen with his intellectual greatness? No, my dear boy; if he did that, he could not be elected a commissioner of highways, far less a member of Congress. No, if I am intellectually superior, I mean scrupulously to conceal the fact from my fellow-citizens, unless, indeed, they choose to apply a degree of ingenuity to the inter- pretation of my personality far beyond any witli whicli I credit them. As I have said, I mean to devote my life to the study of reality, at close quarters, and to reach my conclusions without regard for rose-colored traditions.. By applying these conclusions to my conduct I mean to rise, and rise I shall. If you live long enough, vou will verify my predictions." " I should not wish to succeed at that price," Aleck re- joined, seriously; "you think character is a barrier to suc- cess ? " " I haven't said that ; though, as the world is now con- stituted, a great elevation of character might interfere with success. In the modern world tact is the accepted substitute for character." " You think, then, that principles and convictions are needless encumbrances, and should be thrown overboard by every man who aspires to enter public life ?" OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. 9 "One thing at a time, if you please. Let us begin with convictions. What are convictions at the age of twenty- eight ? Untried axioms, accepted on trust, which exper- ience is liltely to upset. Well, I admit a man who means to succeed cannot afford to equip himself luxuriously with that kind of commodities. At forty, a man may have convictions that are, perhaps, worth something. A public man now-a-days is no more the leader of public opinion, but its follower. He is not an embodiment of knowledge and experience in public affairs, but merely a register of the public ignorance." The younger brother sat silent for some minutes, and gazed dreamily toward the distant horizon. " Horace," he said, at last, "I am too fond of you to wish to quarrel ; but excuse me for saying that I believe you talk for ef- fect. You experience a pleasant sensation when you shock. You like to have people believe you a deep and cold-blooded sgliemer. I fear you are too clever for your own good — so clever that you are in danger of outwitting yourself." Horace? so far from resenting this uncomplimentary analysis, looked up with genuine pleasure. " Good for you, brother," he exclaimed, heartily ; " clev- erness evidently runs in the family. You, too, are a good deal deeper than I gave you credit for." Instead of answering, Aleck again struck the water vehemently with his oars, and sent the boat skimming away over the glassy surface of the lake. His brother was a most unsatisfactory disputant, he thought, who would try the patience of a saint. He talked not to convince, or to arrive at a conclusion, but rather as a feat of intellec- tual gymnastics, and because he liked to exhibit his wit. He was a lawyer first, and afterward an individual ;. counsel for the prosecution or the defence, as the case might be, even in the bosom of his family. lO THE MAMMON' CHAPTER 11. A SELF-MADE MAN. The Hon. Obed Larkin, the uncle of Horace and Alex- ander, was the great man of Torryville, and felt the re- sponsibility of his position. Not only by his wealth was he eminent, but his philanthropy was proportionate to his millions. He had founded the Larkin University, a far- famed co-educational institution, situated on tlie beautiful liill overlooking the town. He had endowed it with a cool million in cash, as he was wont to say, when any of the professors rebelled against his authority ; and he averred that he would never have had that amount of money to spare, if it had not been for the fact that he had never used tobacco or whiskey in any shape, during his entire life. He, therefore, had a strong prejudice against pro- fessors who smoked ; and if he had had his own way, would have given them twenty-four hours' notice to quit the town. But, as he reluctantly admitted, there were other considerations to be taken into account ; and though he stoutly maintained that a man who smoked would also, on occasion, get drunk, and accordingly was unfit to be an in- ■ structor of youth, he was yet obliged to tolerate some of these objectionable characters in his seat of learning. He could not forbear, however, to lecture them, not overbear- ingly, but with many and awkward pauses, on the error of their ways ; and when they beat him in argument, as they often did, he did not blaze up instantly, but he went home, and chewed the cud of reflection, and grew angrier the more he thought of the disrespect they had shown him. The conceited beggars, didn't they owe everything to him? Didn't they live on the fruits of his labor? Where would they have been, if he had not founded his Univer- sity, and given them employment at extravagant wages ? It was scarcely to be wondered at that the Hon. Obed Larkin took this view of professors who dissented from his opinions on the whiskey and tobacco question ; for his OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. II townsmen had long nourished his self-esteem by deferring to him in everything. The influx of students and instruc- tors had given a great impetus to the growth of the town and raised the value of real estate fully five hundred per cent. For this the town was naturally grateful. The greatness and goodness of Mr. Larljin were, therefore, art- icles of faith in Torryville. The fact that he, who was ricli enough to live in magnificence anywhere, chose to live in Torryville, showed plainly enough that Torryville was a most desirable place of residence, and that investment in corner lots was sure to prove profitable. As far as his outward semblance went, the Hon. Obed Larkin was not very imposing. He was a tall, lank, raw- boned man, with a large head and strong, homely features. He had the shrewd, self-confident look of the successful, self-made man ; but under it all lurked a vague discontent which wasemphasized by three deep perpendicular wrinkles in his forehead. He seemed always to be thinking of some- thing unpleasant, always ready to take you down a peg or two, and play ducks and drakes with your self-esteem. He stooped somewhat in his walk, and his coarse gray chin- beard then concealed a part of his shirt-bosom. His upper lip was usually covered with stiff white stubble, giving the impression that he had been shaved two or three days ago. Two deep longitudinal wrinkles, like boundary lines on a map, divided the region of the mouth from that of the cheeks. His grayish-blue eyes, which were shaded by. heavy, upward-curling eyebrows, expressed shrewdness and sagacity. Sometimes there lurked in them a gleam of humor whichi was like a genial commentary to a forbidding text. But ordinarily they had a scrutinizing look, which to strang- ers was often embarrassing. " However clever you pretend to be, I am going to find out just what you amount to," they seemed to say ; and as politeness rarely imposed any restraint upon Mr. Larkin, it is not strange that many found his society less congenial than it was prudent to admit. Appli- cants for positions in the University were apt to go away with a very unfavorable opinion of him. In the first place, the questions he asked seemed often (to a man of scholarly education) absurd ; and secondly, the steady scrutiny of his eyes seemed directly intended to embarrass. Though his manner was plain and devoid of pretence, it had yet that air of patronage which the practical man in the United States is apt to assume toward the scholar, and which the suc'cessful millionaire assumes toward all the unsuccessful 12 >..;.- THE MAMMON creation. When Mr. Lafkin's gaunt, stooping figure arrayed in a rusty dress-coat, with a slight deposit of dandruff on his /collar, appeared on the Univei-sily campus, professors and tut(5rs, unless they had an axe to grind, took care not to cross his path. There was a number of anecdotes related siCb rasa and quietly chuckled over, illustrating his views concerning educational affairs ; but these were only for private consumption. If occasionally he bored a professor with his talk concerning things which he knew nothing about, he was apt to mistake the deferential silence with which his victim listened for admiring astonishment and ap- proval. He had, on the whole, no very flattering opinion of the practical sense and judgment of scholars ; but he had not the remotest idea that tliey regarded his own de- liverances on educational subjects with similar disrespect. Wiien a professor, on one occasion, urged upon him the necessity of a larger appropriation for the library, Mr. Larkin cornered him with this remark : " You want more books, eh ? I'll bet you a dollar you hain't read all those you've got. Read those, and tiien we'll talk about getting more." And chuckling at his shrewdness, he strolled off to but- tonhole an instructor, whom he took to task for having failed to pass some applicants at the entrance examina- tions. There was no gainsaying his arguments, especially when he came along with the rejected applicants, person- ally insisting upon their admission. He had never been in a college himself, and could not be made to understand that some things have to be known before others An be taught with advantage. He was a self-made man, and as Lawyer Graves, the wit of the town, said, having made himself, he had enough left over to make a brother. The brother in question, however, would not stay " made." Ezekiel Larkin was one of those sanguine men who plunge headlong into enterprises, without properly con- sidering the probabilities for and against success. He was a cleverer man than the Hon. Obed, but would have sunk into absolute penury if the latter had not taken him under his wing. There was a story told which nobody pretended to believe, and yet did not wholly disbelieve, that Obed owed his fortune to an invention made by Zeke. How- ever that may have been, there was something in the re- lation of the brothers which gave color to the suspicion i hat they did not love each other was perhaps not so very OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. 1 3 wonderful ; but that so shrewd a business man as Obed should consent, again and again, to invest in Zeke's enter- prises, which he must have known were foredoomed to failure, and patiently bear his elder brother's erratic be- liavior, could only be explained on tlie supposition that the latter had a " pull" on him. Obed was not otlierwise noted for indulgent judgments, and he apparently respect- ed no idiosyncrasies but his own. He had risen, by slow degrees, from nothing, and he maintained that that was the only proper way of reaching eminence. His brother and himself had both commenced life as stone-masons, and would perhaps have remained stone-masons, if the improvement in bridge-building, which Obed patented, had not thrown profitable contracts for public works in his way by enabling him to underbid competitors. The subsequent steps in his advancement followed naturally with his increasing wealth and influence. He made vast sums during the war in his legitimate business, besides being interested in army contracts whicli also yielded him handsome profits. At the close of the war he settled in Torryville, where he established a paper mill, a national bank, and in the course of time a flourishing university. Without any apparent effort, he absorbed all the dignities which his fellow-citizens had to bestow, went to the legis- lature, became a State senator, and had repeatedly been of- fered the nomination for governor. On his brother's death, in 1867, he took his nephews into his house, made them enter his university, and in due time established them in what promised to be a profitable law practice. He made tlie firm of Larkin Brothers his legal representatives whenever, in his various enterprises, his interests collided with those of others, and managed to tlirow a great deal of business in their way. As regards Mr. Larkin's domestic relations, they were in all respects exemplary. Tliere was but one drawback to his happiness: h-i« wife had no children. It was to repair this deficiency that he had adopted his brother's sons, and moreover, a little girl named Gertrude, whom, in a Quixotic mood, he had picked up in aii asylum or alms- house, or some such institution. That was, at all events, the legend in its official version. Miss Gertrude herself, who was now seventeen years old could neither confirm nor deny it, as she was but three years old when she was removed by Mr. Larkin from her original habitat. The foiM-teen fat years of her life had swallowed up the mem- 14 THE MAMMON ory of the three lean ones. And yet, the obscurity of her origin remained a most potent fact in fashioning her char- acter. She Icnevv, or imagined she knew, tiiat it was re- membered against her, and this consciousness gave to her bearing a certain reserve vvhicli many mistook for pride. She was tall of growth and large-limbed. The expression of her face was vague, groping, unawakened, but withal soft and maidenly. It was tliis sweetly bovine expression' which Homer attributed to Hera when he called her heifer- eyed. Gertrude's wide-open, infantine gaze carried out the same suggestion. Its virginal shyness alternated, however, at times, with the liveliest animation and enterprise. But if anyone presumed upon her sympathy to become con- fidential, her manner instantly changed to a cold and haughty unresponsiveness. Her dark-blonde, wavy hair was subject to continual experiments in the manner of arrangement, but whatever was done with it seemed in- capable of spoiling tlie noble contour of her head. Tak- ing her altogether, she was quite as much a mystery to lierself as she was to others ; and if it had not been for the fact that slie was beautiful, and moreover Mr. Lar- kin's adopted daughter, nobody would have troubled him- self to solve her riddle. As it was, the sentiment which the town entertained toward her was anything but favor- able, and Gertrude, feeling the latent hostility, returned it with interest. " You can't make out that girl," was the remark most commonly heard ; " but what can you expect of a person that has been picked right out of tlie gutter? Mr. Larkin's kindness to her has turned her head." Tea-sipping, middle-aged Cassandras were never weary of prophesying disastrous consequences to Mr. Larkin from his generous conduct to Gertrude. If these proplie- cies, in a mitigated form, reached Mr. Larkin's ear, they made no impression upon him. He was, by nature, too sanguine to believe that anything in which he was con- cerned could turn out disastrously. Girls, to be sure, were queer things, and you couldn't always tell what they would be up to. But he had observed that they generally came out all right in the end. He had known lots of girls m his day, and most of them had had a period when all sort of antics and tomfooleries came sort of natural to them; but for all that, they had slipped as meekly as any mto the matrimonial harness, and then thev were of course all right. If Gertrude was a little hifalut'in', why, it didn't OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. 1 5 signify. She was a pretty girl, and he had observed that pretty girls were apt to have more antics, and were harder to manage, than the homely ones. But they were sure to come out all right, he repeated, confidently. If Mrs. Larkin did not share his confidence in this, as in many other respects, it was with her a matter of tempera- ment rather than of conviction. Mrs. Larkin had a pro- pensity for lugubrious predictions, and cherished a sub- dued aversion for her husband's optimism. She never contradicted him, chiefly because, with her natural indo- lence, she felt unequal to the effort of arguing; but she sighed her dissent and expressed it in mournful glances and shakings of her head. She was a large, blonde, good- looking woman of about forty, with sad blue eyes and a healthy complexion. She had a slight stoop in her shoul- ders and walked heavilj', not so much on account of stout- ness as on account of the weight of woe that oppressed her. Frequently she paused, as if endeavoring to recollect where she was going. There was a perceptible inequality between the two sides of her face, though not enough to attract immediate attention. On the left side there was an odd contraction of the muscles which drew the corner of the mouth a little downward, giving to the face a chronic air of dissatisfaction. She could therefore only smile on one side of her mouth, while the other seemed to deprecate such levity. She dressed without style or pretence of style, and her garments hung about her with yuaker-like rigidity. As she had equal difficulty in keeping warm in winter' and cool in summer, fretful comments on the weatlier formed the staple of her conversation. A red worsted shawl was either drooping from her shoulders or depending from her arm, and, as malicious critics asserted, served the purpose of concealing the bad fit of her dresses. What Mrs. Larkin, above all things, hungered for was a mission ; not a mere self-imposed task, but an unmistak- able call from on high, such as came to the prophets of old. She was in her way a religious woman, but believed religion to consist in a general disapproval of everything pertaining to the earth,"and a predilection for lugubrious conversation. It was a source of grief with her that she had never heard God's voice calling her in the stillness of the night, as it did the cliild Samuel ; though she had re- markable dreams, in which her pastor. Rev. Arthur Rob- bins, was disposed to discern divine warnings and com- mands, she was a little bit too conscientious to agree with 1 6- THE MAMMON him. Her spurts of enthusiasm for this or that cause which the church endorsed, were usually due to the influ- ence of Mr. Robbins ; but either because, as she was fond of asserting, she was a frail vessel, or because her worldly- sense was not quite so dead as she liked to believe, her zeal was apt to flag before much was accomplished. She had had her Indian craze, during which she had gone to considerable expense in having Mr. Robbins's tract, " Science and the Bible Reconciled," translated into some- thing which she innocently believed to be "the Indian language." She had been in correspondence with officials in Washington and Indian agents, regarding the expedi- ency of having this tract distributed along with the sup- plies from the government agencies, and iiad been much gratified at the interest which her correspondents dis- played in the project. An army ofiicer who was her hus- band's guest for a few days, had, however, the cruelty to disillusionize her, and from that time forth her interest in the Indians was at an end. A project for the conversion of the Catholic converts in China to the Evangelical re- ligion, and another for spreading the gospel among the Mohammedans, were equally short-lived and expensive. The more remote a mission was to Mrs. Larkin, the more it fascinated her. It was owing to this peculiarity of hers, that her nephews, Horace and Alexander, with whom she came in daily contact in her own house, never presented themselves to her mind as possible objects of missionary zeal. Horace had an imperturbable self-confidence which made her half afraid of him, and his disrespectful laugh discouraged all interest in-his spiritual welfare. Alexander, on the other hand, seemed too incorrigibly light-hearted, and refused to sympathize with her solicitude for the fate of the heathen in the hereafter. He treated her with liumorous affection, made fun of her projects in a good- natured way, ran against her in the doorways, embraced herlay accident, and made profuse apologies. " You only imagine me to be an Arab or a Zulu-Kaffir, aunt," he would exclaim, laughingly ; " and then you won't mind." She could not help liking him, in spite of his frivolity ; but influence him she could not. It was, in fart, not Mrs. Larkin's forte to influence anybody. Even Gertrude, her adopted daughter, had long since emancipated herself from lier autliority. When, therefore, her husband expressed his confidence that Gertrude would turn out all right, she OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. -I/ would lift her eyes to heaven and sigh, as if oppressed with forebodings of disaster. When she had occasion to ad- dress the girl, she never looked at her or spolse to her di- rectly, but dropped her words, as it were, inadvertently in corners and around the walls, and left Gertrude to pick them up if she chose. Whatever her daughter said or did seemed to have a strange power to shock Mrs. Larkin, who then, instead of expressing her disapproval, appealed with devout eyes to the ceiling and shook her head in dismal ap- prehension. It was scarcely to be wondered at that Ger- trude felt uncomfortable under this treatment, and some- times was guilty of unfilial language. But when, in the spasms of remorse which followed these outbursts, she flung herself on Mrs. Larkin's neck and begged her for- giveness, the hitter's unresponsive manner, her virtuous disavowal of all her personal feeling, and her references to heaven as the only source of forgiveness, would suddenly chill the passionate girl and make her feel hard and wicked. If, with a vague hope of consolation, she sought refuge with her father, his well-intentioned obtuseness was scarce- ly easier to bear. He was so irritatingly confident that everything would come out all right, that nobody meant any harm, that all i-esentment and sorrow were mere mis- takes, and as such easily corrected. He had always oc- cupied this neutral ground between her and her mother ; he had refrained from committing himself to any definite judgment, and was therefore equally unsatisfactory to both. 1 8 THE MAMMON CHAPTER III, founder's day. It was the trustees of the University who had put down Mr. Larkin's birthday as a holidaj'; on the calendar, under the name of Founder's Daj'. Larkin' Day the students called it, and celebrated it in the spirit of their own inter- pretation. Thejjpportunities for "larkin' " were, however, limited in Torryville, and in the dearth of amusemenifTRe young men had recourse to all sorts of desperate inven- tions. They contrived by superhuman efifoits to get 6ne~of the founder's cows up into the bell^wer of the chapel, and there proceeded to paint it green. They put a fine collection of live mice into tlie desk of one of the professors, who was very near-sighted and nervous, and they dyed with blue ink the marble bust of a certain opulent, but unpop- ular, college officer which adorned the librarv. Sometimes they descended upon the neighboring villages and played all sorts of rude pranks upon the citizens ; and occasionally a party of them would visit credulous farmers, to whom they would introduce one of their number as the son of Gen- eral Grant or some other celebrity, and be entertained ac- cordingly. The principal ceremony of the day was, however, the founder's Reception, which took place in a large forlorn, jail-like dormitory, called the Barracks. Here students of both sexes gathered in a great dreary, imperfectly lighted hall, with bare plastered walls, and dingy white- painted woodwork. In the middle of the floor stood Mr. and Mrs. Larkin, and shook hands with a multitude of people, the former with his head on one side and mildly jocose, the latter stiff and awkward, with her elbow against her side, and holding out one limp hand which made no response to any pressure. Her one-sided smile, with which she greeted those of her visitors whom she knew, looked sadder than ever; and her feeble and tentative remarks, which for lack of confidence in their proprietv she rarely finished, made one realize, as he went away OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. 19 that life was a melancholy affair. Young men with crude but earnest faces, and in all varieties of costume, walked up, some witli a stoop and some with a swagger, to ex- change some awkward remarks with the man who regarded himself as their benefactor; and their features showed tlie relief they felt when the ordeal was well over. A few of them, braving the prejudice which yet existed against co-education, had female students, in prim or helplessly aspiring toilets, loosely attached to their arms, as if they feared contact ; while others, glorying in their prejudice, came striding along with village beauties who clung to them with delightful confidence. A dozen Brazilians, with dark and indolent faces, formed a group near the door, from which the most adventurous among them made excursions in the direction of the prettiest girls, and again returned to render an account of their exploits, which were then discussed with southern gestures and animation. Two small, yellow-faced Japan- ese, with bristling black hair and bead-like eyes, had been cornered by some resolute female students, and were being subjected to a rigid cross-examination concerning the government and social customs of their native land. A Servian, two Russians, and a Bulgarian completed the collection of alien tribes, as far as the undergraduates were concerned. There were professors, however, whose wives represented several nationalities and strikingly varying types. There were men who looked as if they came directly from the plough, and expected to return to it, with wives whom toil and child-bearing had made prematurely old ; and there were recent graduates of Harvard and Columbia, in correct evening attire, and with an ease of manner which became slightly ironical when they conversed with their rustic colleagues. There vi'as the stout, squatty, and mel- ancholy Professor Dowd, who for some inscrutable reason had wooed a sprightly little Viennese lady, and for some equally inscrutable reason, had won not only her hand, but her affection. She was so dainty i\nd/e/tfe, and looked, as she came tripping along through the crowd, like the very incarnation of delightful frivolity — as a wasp-waisted pink shepherdess a la Watteau would have looked in the meet- ing-house of the Pilgrim Fathers. "Ach! I am so glat to see you, Mrs. Larrkin," she exclaimed, with an inimitable foreign accent and vivacious gestures. " You are well, yes ? Ah, yes, I see you are 20 THE MAMMON well. You look so fine and radiant. And your husbant, he is well — how you must be proud of him on a day like this, dear Mrs. Larrkin — to see all he has accomplished — to have brought the plessing of knowledge into so many voiing lives. He looks so proud and commanding — like a sheneral on a field of pattle." Mrs. Dowd went on witli unblushing mendacity pour- ing forth her compliments, until something in Mrs. Lar- kins's wondering eyes showed her that she was throwing her pearls before swine. Then suddenly, with an impa- tient shrug of her shoulders, she pinched her liusband, who in the meanwhile had been conversing with the founder, and whispering with suppressed wrath : "Ah, ?non Dieu, quelle est bete," dragged him reluctantly awa}\ They were followed by Professor and Mrs. Wharton, whom the founder greeted with handshakes that tingled in their toes. Pro- fessor Wharton gave instruction in some practical branch of stud}-, not usually embraced in a university course, wliich Mr. Larkin had especially at heart. He was a man with a shrewd, homely, coarse-featured face, coarse brown hair, and rims of dried tobacco juice on his lips. His wife, who was tall, lean, and flat-chested, with remnants of faded comeliness, looked as if, on proper provocation, she could scratch your eyes out. " Well, Professor," Mr. Larkin began, as he released Mrs. Wharton's hand, " it looks rather different on this hill-top from what it did ten years ago, when you first came here." " It dooes, indeed," said Mr. Wharton, with the emphasis of conviction. " You wouldn't know it was tlie same place, eh ? " " I wouldn't believe you on your oath, if you were to tell me it was the same place, if I hadn't been here myself and seen everything change from day to day." Mr. Larkin chuckled delightedly. That was the kind of talk he liked to hear. "It does seem wonderful, Mr. Wharton, don't it?" he went on, loath to drop the congenial topic. " It does, indeed," Mr. Wharton said once more, look- ing as if the thing just struck him in a new and surpris- ing light. " You have reason to be proud of your work, Mr. Lar- kin," remarked Mrs. Wharton, in a shrill, grating voice. "Not proud, but gratified, Mrs. Wharton," answered the host ; " a man can't do more than his best, you know and God's blessing must do the rest." ' OF UI^RIGHTEOUSNESS. 21 "A true word is that, Mr. Larkin. But it ain't every- one of us that God gives the chance and the will to do such great things in his service." Mr. Larl