The old man was overjoyed to have attracted attention. He hobbled forward with difficulty as they approached, and bowed as low as his infirmities would permit.

"You are welcome to Bermuda," he said with a cracked, high-pitched voice. "We are pleased to have strangers visit us."

"Your visitors remain strangers but a little while," Huntington answered him, "because of your hospitality."

"Won't you come in and sit down?" the old man urged.

"Not to-day, thank you; but if we should not be intruding it would be a pleasure to return some other time."

"You could not intrude, sir," he insisted; "for I am only waiting."

"Waiting?" Huntington questioned.

"Yes; waiting for that," and he pointed to a tall cedar growing inside the yard, beside which was the stump of another tree.

"He wants to tell us something," Merry whispered.

"They were planted there sixty years ago," the old man continued, "the two of them. They were little slips, stuck in our wedding-cake as is our custom here, when my wife and I were married. We put them in the ground, for everything takes root in this soil, and they grew side by side for fifty years. Then that one fell"--pointing to the stump,--"and the next day my wife was taken sick and died. We made her coffin from the cedar wood of that tree, sir. Now I'm waiting for the other one to fall. That was ten years ago now, so it won't be long."

"Isn't that a beautiful idea?" Merry exclaimed, touched by the unconscious pathos of the old man's words. "We would like to come back and have you tell us about your wife."

"She was a sweet, young girl like yourself when I married her," he replied. "We were both born here and never left the island. But the maps aren't fair to us; we're not so small"--he straightened and waved his arm--"we're not so small, as you can see."

They left him happy over the unusual break in his monotony, and continued their walk to the hotel.

"Here is the other side to the picture," Huntington remarked. "This old man and his wife, and hundreds of others no doubt, live their lives out here happy and contented with their nineteen square miles of world, yet you and I are pitying Hamlen because of his self-exile under circ.u.mstances infinitely more acceptable!"

"It is a question of what one has within, isn't it?" Merry asked, "that something which keeps one from being satisfied with anything less than the most and the best that life can give him and he can give to life."

Huntington looked at her with undisguised admiration. "You couldn't have stated it better if you had taken all the college courses in the world,"

he said. "You're a wonderful little girl, Miss Merry, and if you don't let your heart play pranks with that well-balanced head of yours you will certainly achieve your great ambition."

They were near the hotel now, and the conversation had strayed so far from the original subject that the girl did not follow him.

"My great ambition?" she asked. "And that is--"

"I won't tell you until we're up the steps."

"Well?" she demanded archly, as at length they stood on the piazza.

"You will marry a man who will let you contribute your share to the real life which you will jointly live."

The laughing response which he had looked for was not spoken, but to his amazement Merry turned from him without a word and disappeared within the hallway.

XIV

Thatcher and Cosden chartered one of the hotel carriages the next morning and started on a tour of inspection over the route plotted out by Duncan for the proposed trolley-line. After pa.s.sing beyond the town limits, and with the long stretch of superb coral road ahead of them, Thatcher turned to his companion.

"Why can't we get together on the Consolidated Machinery?" he asked pointedly.

"The public demands that your nefarious trust be compelled to recognize its rights," Cosden replied smiling.

"Good!" Thatcher smiled in response. "Now that you have that piffle off your chest, please go on."

"This time we have the goods," Cosden added significantly.

"If you are so sure of it, why don't you show them to us? Then we can tell whether it's a real hold-up or merely an attempt."

"That's just the point, and the sooner your crowd realizes it the less time you will waste. This is not a hold-up game; we have the goods, and we can make a better thing by operating than by selling out."

"You have courage to buck up against an organization as strong as ours."

"Not only courage but capital enough to see us through."

The antiquated stage-coach, plying between St. George's and Hamilton, lumbered past them. Cosden smiled as he turned to his companion.

"There's a perfect ill.u.s.tration of the situation," he said. "Your machines belong to the same vintage as that old coach, yet by maintaining a monopoly, as you have been able to do until now, you have succeeded in forcing manufacturers to employ antique methods, and to pay you a whacking big royalty for the privilege of remaining twenty years behind the times. That stage-coach will stand as much chance of continuing on its beat, if our trolley scheme goes through, as your machines have of keeping out of the sc.r.a.p-heap when ours once get on the market. This isn't any news to you, Thatcher, and that's what makes your whole crowd so anxious."

"If what Duncan tells us is correct," Thatcher retorted quickly, "we have just about as much show of pulling off the trolley scheme as you fellows have of putting this machinery game over on us. Somebody has been going to do this to us for twenty years, but somehow the manufacturers keep coming back to renew their contracts."

"Of course they do," Cosden admitted; "they haven't dared to do anything else. Look at the terms in your leases! Any manufacturer would have to be absolutely sure that the new machines were backed strongly enough to keep you from punishing him for his temerity. That can now be guaranteed, and with the element of fear eliminated they will flock to us, rejoicing that they have the opportunity to leave their shackles of bondage behind them."

"Another Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation!" laughed Thatcher; but Cosden found the moment to impress the enemy with the strength of his position too opportune to allow himself to be diverted.

"Think of it, Thatcher," he cried with characteristic enthusiasm. "In less than two years they can save enough, through the economies of production, to buy their machines outright, instead of continuing year after year to pay you tribute with nothing at the end to show for it. We give them methods as well as machines, and show them how an ordinary workman can produce the high-grade output of a skilled operative by means of the improved automatic features of our machinery. The makers of medium-quality goods can now turn out work equal to that heretofore produced only by high-grade manufacturers."

"You're a grand salesman, Cosden," Thatcher said lightly. "Your company ought to put you on the road! Our people would pay you a big salary to handle the sales end of our organization."

"I shouldn't be worth ten dollars a week to them. There are three kinds of salesmen, Thatcher: one sells his concern, another sells his customers, and the third sells his goods. A man can't belong in the third cla.s.s unless he himself believes in what he's selling. I've been making these machines for our crowd for five years, including the experimental period, and I know what I'm talking about. Four big plants are now being equipped, and when they once begin running you'll see your royalties dropping away from you like friends after a failure. The fact that you have had a monopoly has encouraged your people to keep their eyes on the stock-market instead of on the improvement of their machines, and our biggest a.s.set is the fact that every manufacturer who is leasing from you to-day is sore over his treatment."

"That goes without saying," Thatcher admitted; "they would be sore if we gave them the machines outright. But if you are so sure your improvements are valuable, why go to the expense of duplicating our selling and manufacturing equipment when we stand ready to make a fair trade?"

"The new machines wouldn't be worth as much to you as they are to us."

"Why not?"

"Because you would never use them. The improved models would simply be side-tracked to keep them from competing against your antiques. You would be paying whatever it cost to get hold of them for hush money, just as you have done a hundred times before."

"Suppose we did: what difference would it make to you, so long as you get a good thing out of it? I don't understand that your company was organized for philanthropic purposes."