“Take my advice,” said Harry, “donate nothing. Say nothing about this gift; I will take care of the warden, and I can answer for the dean.”
“Yes,” said the dean, “on the whole, Gilling, you would better say nothing, I think; Mr. Lossing is more afraid of a reputation for generosity than of the small-pox.”
The older man looked at Harry with glistening eyes of admiration; with what Christian virtues of humility he was endowing that embarrassed young man, it is painful to imagine.
The dean's eyes twinkled above his handkerchief, which hid his mouth, as he rose to make his farewells. He shook hands, warmly. “God bless you, Harry,” said he. Gilling, too, wrung Harry's hands; he was seeking some parting word of gratitude, but he could only choke out, “I hope you will get MARRIED some time, Mr. Lossing, then you'll understand.”
“Well,” said Harry, as the door closed, and he flung out his arms and his chest in a huge sigh, “I do believe it was better than the puppies!”
THE note-book of Mr. Horatio Armorer, president of our street railways, contained a page of interest to some people in our town, on the occasion of his last visit.
He wrote it while the train creaked over the river, and the porter of his Pullman car was brushing all the dust that had been distributed on the passengers' clothing, into the main aisle.
If you had seen him writing it (with a stubby little pencil that he occasionally brightened with the tip of his tongue), you would not have dreamed him to be more profoundly disturbed than he had been in years. Nor would the page itself have much enlightened you.
“_See abt road M-- D-- See L See E & M tea-set See abt L_.”
Translated into long-hand, this reads: “See about the street-car road, Marston (the superintendent) and Dane (the lawyer). See Lossing, see Esther and Maggie, and remember about tea-set. See about Lossing.”
His memoranda written, he slipped the book in his pocket, reflecting cynically, “There's habit! I've no need of writing that. It's not pleasant enough to forget!”
Thirty odd years ago, Horatio Armorer--they called him 'Raish, then--had left the town to seek his fortune in Chicago. It was his daydream to wrestle a hundred thousand dollars out of the world's tight fists, and return to live in pomp on Brady Street hill! He should drive a buggy with two horses, and his wife should keep two girls. Long ago, the hundred thousand limit had been reached and passed, next the million; and still he did not return. His father, the Presbyterian minister, left his parish, or, to be exact, was gently propelled out of his parish by the disaffected; the family had a new home; and the son, struggling to help them out of his scanty resources, went to the new parish and not to the old. He grew rich, he established his brothers and sisters in prosperity, he erected costly monuments and a memorial church to his parents (they were beyond any other gifts from him); he married, and lavished his money on three daughters; but the home of his youth neither saw him nor his money until Margaret Ellis bought a house on Brady Street, far up town, where she could have all the grass that she wanted. Mrs. Ellis was a widow and rich. Not a millionaire like her brother, but the possessor of a handsome property.