After Death -- What
Osborne, William Hamilton
Part I
As Spalding -- superannuated, possibly, but jaunty still -- trotted nimbly down the aisle between the rows of desks, glances of welcome, murmurs of surprise, greeted him. He had become a stranger; the office force had not seen him for full two years. He nodded right and left, chuckled, as was his wont, and here and there stretched out a hand. Plainly he was glad to greet the Interstate Company once again, and that concern returned the compliment.
There were exceptions. Here and there a thirty-dollar-a-week man eyedthe former manager with sour and savage glance. One of these turned to hisneighbor.
"Cocky as ever, ain't he?" he queried.
His neighbor was a new man.
"Who is he?"
"A has-been so far as concerned -- was fired months ago; but look athim! Red necktie-swell gray suit-gaiters! Boy, when do we get thechance at some real money? Look at Spalding! Retired -- rich and retired. Allhe's got to do is to draw a check."
Quite unconscious of these remarks and of the envious glances bestowedupon him, Spalding, the former manager of the Interstate Company, enteredthe private office of Ephraim T. Ogilvie.
Ogilvie was a man of fifty -- lean, healthy, well set up. His hair wasgrizzled, his mustache just turning gray. He was well dressed, but not soscrupulously neat as Spalding. He strode forward and held out his hand -- a bitshamefacedly, perhaps. Spalding retreated before him. Ogilvie wasworried.
"No hard feelings, Mr. Spalding?" he exclaimed.
Spalding vigorously shook his head.
"I just wanted to shut the door -- I want to talk to you."
He closed the door, and came back and took a seat. Despite his red tie, hisgaiters, his natty suit of clothes, all his cockiness forsook him. Of a suddenhe seemed old -- very old. He leaned forward on his cane and touched Ogilvieupon the arm.
"Eph," he began, "almost four o'clock. I left the house at eight o'clockthis morning; and when I left I told Mrs. Spalding -- I told Sally that I'd bringhome forty dollars with me. I -- I can't go home without it!" His lower liptrembled. "Eph," he cried, "honest to goodness, I haven't got a dollar in theworld. I know what to do!"
Ogilvie, as if the other man had struck him, sprang from his seat and pacedthe floor.
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"Good Lord!" he groaned.
Quite as suddenly he came back to his seat. He tossed a sheet of paper tohis visitor.
"Mr. Spalding," he returned, "I have to ask you to believe me. I -- Inever lied to you in my life."
"I know you didn't, Eph," returned the elder man.
"My bank balance -- there it is," said Ogilvie. "Look at it! It's less than tendollars -- see for yourself. Less than ten dollars at the present moment." Heheld up his hand at the other man's look of surprise. "Wait! I know whatyou're going to say -- that I am getting twenty-five thousand a year. Iknow it? And I know that I've overdrawn my salary account to the tuneof five thousand? And I know that I own a dollar's worth ofstock -- not a bond or mortgage, not an inch of real estate? Look here!" Hetossed another paper toward his visitor. "The premium on my life-insurancepolicy became due yesterday. I can't pay it -- I daren't draw another cent fromthe office till the middle of next month. All that I've got between myself andstarvation is my ability -- and my life."
Spalding had been watching him -- wondering. He knew that Ogilvie hadtold the truth. He wiped his forehead.
"Great guns, Eph!" said Spalding. I thought all you had to do was to drawa check!"
He had unconsciously echoed the exact words of the supernumerary in theouter office; but in reality the phrase was his own -- one with which the officehad become familiar during Spalding's incumbency as manager.
"All got to do is to draw a check!"
"Mr. Spalding," went on Ogilvie, "if ever one man felt grateful to another,my gratitude is due to you. You -- you brought me up in this plant; you taughtme all I know. I know the business well, too. I couldn't help their putting mein your place."
The old man held up his hand.
"No offense -- no offense, Eph," he protested. "It had to come -- it wasinevitable. And I'd rather it had been you than -- well, Grierson, for instance. There was only one thing that hurt. They used to pay me fifteen thousand, andthey jacked you up to twenty-five. Why didn't they pay me twenty-five?" hewent on savagely. "If they had, I wouldn't have been bumming around nowfor a measly forty dollars!"
Ogilvie paced the floor again.
"Yes, you would, Mr. Spalding," he returned. "There's just the point. They pay me ten thousand more than they paid you -- and flat broke. What's the reason? Do we have to spend all we make? Does the Interstateask me to cut a wide swath? Is there an implied suggestion that I ought to doit? Or do I merely want to do it? Or do I drift into it? What does it mean? Why, look here, Mr. Spalding," he went on, seating himself again and drawinghis chair up close to the other man's. "When I was a boy, there were men whoearned five thousand a year, year in and year out. Those men were consideredrich. They lived on half their earnings and salted down the other half -- andthey died rich. Why can't we do it, Mr. Spalding? You, with tenthousand -- fifteen thousand a year, for years; I, with twenty-five. What's thetrouble, Mr. Spalding? That's what I want to know."
Spalding hopelessly shook his head.
"We belong to the new school, I suppose," he returned. "Live and letlive -- eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow -- "
The younger man interrupted him. "Ah!" exclaimed Ogilvie. "That'swhat bothers me. When dead -- when my life and my ability no longer earnthousands of dollars -- what's going to become of my family? If I left them ahundred thousand dollars -- which I can't -- they couldn't live on the income ofit, at the rate going now. That's what bothers me. After death -- what? That's
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the question, Mr. Spalding; and got me going, too!"
Spalding had regained his spirits.
"Godfrey!" he exclaimed. "I thought I was pretty badly off, but -- "
"We're all in the same boat," said Ogilvie. "Come, drive you to yourhouse; and you tell Mrs. Spalding just how the matter stands."
Part II
Ogilvie, an active man himself, possessed a family always busily engaged. His daughter, Irene, and his son, Tod, seemed to have inherited their father'srestlessness. Like him, they had to do things all the time. Their mother hadbeen dead for several years.
At the very moment when Ogilvie and Spalding stepped into the former'slimousine, Irene was busily engaged. She was gambling -- in the highlyrespectable and reputable way sanctioned by the present fashion -- at her ownbridge-whist in her own home.
Irene Ogilvie was a pretty girl just out of her teens. She was interesting. She had a quick, nervous, attractive way about her, a vivid smile, and fineteeth and eyes. Her great social ambition was to keep herself constantlyinterested.
To this end she avoided the fish, the crabs, the muckers. She rouged a bit,smoked a bit, and wore abbreviated frocks; but she did these thingsunconsciously, as it were -- did them as a matter of course. The stare of a roueat her bare shoulder embarrassed her not a jot nor tittle; nor did the flush ofclean-hearted youth at the same seductive sight cause her any thrill.
To her, styles and manners were quite a matter of course -- as little worthyof remark as daily food. Had fashion dictated nun's garb for a change, shewould have assumed it. If taking snuff had come into style, she would havesneezed with all the rest.
But these were not the interesting things. The mob lived to do thesethings; Irene lived for something else. Innocently, but eagerly, she sought thespice of life and found it -- the unique in men and women. Not fish -- not crabs. Spice -- that was the point!
She had learned early what few New Yorkers know -- that regularity andrespectability do not afford the real entertainment -- that there is but little of thedramatic to be found in a flock of sheep. Unconsciously, unerringly, shepicked the crowd that pleased her -- the irregulars, those tinged with a bit ofmystery. Not, the Bohemians -- they are all alike. Some of her friends wererich, some poor, many of them prominent, some quite unknown; but all weregay, all were interesting.
The most interesting of them all was Blandy, soldier of fortune.
As his car turned into the long, straight stretch that led to his home,Ogilvie was thinking about Irene.
"After death -- what?"
He couldn't shake it off. What would become of Irene? She might marry,but she hadn't married yet. What in the world would she do, if --
Tod, who was now in his junior year at Yale, could ...
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