LOVE AND A LATCH-KEY

This is the story of the circ.u.mstances surrounding the invention of Simpson's Electric Latch-Key, an invention with which everybody is now familiar, but regarding the origin of which the public has never been informed. There were reasons, grave ones for a time, why the story should not be told--in short, there was a love affair mixed with it--but those reasons no longer exist, and it seems a good thing to relate the facts in the case. They may interest a great number of people, particularly middle-aged gentlemen in the large cities. I know that for me, at least, they have possessed no little attraction.

Love proverbially laughs at locksmiths, but it is safe to say that before Simpson's Electric Latch-Key was known even that cheerful G.o.d would not have dared to smile in the presence of some of the problems connected with locks and keys. Now all is changed. The general use of the latch-key mentioned has increased the gayety of nations since the recent time in which this story is laid. Otherwise there would be no story to tell, as this is but the plain narration of the love and ambition which inspired, perfected, and triumphantly demonstrated the usefulness of the invention.

The North Side in the city of Chicago may put on airs as a residence district, and the South Side may put on airs as containing the heart of the vast business district of Chicago, but the West Side is as big as the two of them, and its population contains a large number of exceedingly rich men, who, like the rich men of the other sides, are as content with themselves for being "self-made," are just as grumpy, and with as many weaknesses. Some of these West Side rich men live on Ashland Avenue. There certainly lived and lives Mr. Jason B. Grampus, a great speculator, whose home has its palatial aspects.

West Side millionaires, like those on the other sides, are not infrequently the fathers of fair daughters. Sometimes they have only one daughter, and no sons at all, and in such cases the daughter becomes a very desirable acquisition for a young man of tact and enterprise. There is no law of nature which makes a millionaire's daughter less really lovable than other young women, and there is no law of nature which makes a young man who may fall in love with her, even though he be poor, a fortune-hunter and a blackguard. The young man who has a social position without money is in a perilous way. He may fall in love with a young woman with money, and then his motives will be impugned, especially by the parents. It depends altogether on the young man how he accepts the more or less anomalous position described. If he be strong, he adapts himself in one way; if he be weak, he does it in another.

Ned Simpson was not of the weaker sort, and he was desperately in love with the daughter of "old man Grampus." The fact that she would eventually be worth more than a million did not affect his love to its injury. He said frankly to himself that she was none the worse for that, but it must be a.s.serted to his credit that he thought of her prospective money very little. He stood ready to take her penniless, on the instant.

Unfortunately, he could not take her on any conditions. Mr. Grampus and Mrs. Grampus stood like mountains in his way.

Not that Simpson lacked social equality with the Grampus family. He was a young stockbroker, with expectations as yet unrealized, it is true, but with a good ancestry and with business popularity. By day he met old Grampus upon terms of equality. Old Grampus liked him, after a fashion.

He had visited the Grampus house, had dined there often, had met the old lady with the purring ways, had met, also, the radiant daughter, Sylvia, and had fallen in love with the latter, deeply and irrevocably. He had made love cleverly and earnestly, as a fine man should, and had succeeded wonderfully.

Sylvia was as deeply in love with him as he was with her. They had solemnly and in all honesty entered into an agreement that they would remain true, each to the other, no matter what might come. Then he had approached the father, manfully explained the situation, and had encountered a reception which was a sight to see and an amazing thing to hear. The old man was striking when at his worst, and Simpson almost admired him for his command of explosive expletives. One likes to see almost anything done well. Simpson was ordered never to enter the house again. He contained himself pretty well; he made no promises, but he met that young woman almost every evening. Meanwhile, the young man and the old man met daily in a business way.

As a rule, the relations between a lover who has been figuratively kicked out of a house and the man who has figuratively kicked him out are somewhat strained. Still, young Simpson and old Grampus met down town in a business way, and it is only putting it fairly concerning Simpson to say that he showed a forgiving spirit--almost an impudently forgiving spirit, one might say. Light-hearted and careless as he seemed to be among his business a.s.sociates, Simpson possessed a resolute character, and when he decided upon a course, adhered to it determinedly. He was not going to be desperate; he was not going overseas to "wed some savage woman, who should rear his dusky race"; but he was going to eventually have Miss Grampus, or know the reason why. He did not want to elope with the young woman; in fact, he felt that she wouldn't elope if he asked her, for she was fond of her father, and he knew that his end must be attained by vast diplomacy. Just how, he had not decided upon. But he felt his way vaguely.

"One thing is certain," he said to himself, "I must keep my temper and cultivate the old man."

He did cultivate Mr. Grampus, and did it so well that after a season the two would even lunch together. It was an anomalous happening, this lunching together, of a poor young man with a rich old one, who had refused a daughter's hand; but such things occur in the grotesque, huge Western money-mart. In Chicago there is a great gulf fixed between business and family relations. Grampus began to consider Simpson an excellent fellow--that is, as one to meet at luncheon, not as a son-in-law. A son-in-law should have money.

There was a skeleton in the Grampus closet, but it was not scandalous, and was never mentioned. Still, to old Mr. Grampus, the guilty one, the skeleton was real and terrible. He, the gruff, overbearing, successful man of business, the one beneath whose gaze clerks shuddered and stenographers turned pale, was afraid to go home at least four nights of the seven nights in the week. He was afraid to meet his wife.

A great club man was Mr. Grampus. He delighted in each evening spent with his old cronies, in the whist-playing, the reminiscences, the storytelling, the arguments, and the moderate smoking and drinking.

Unfortunately, he could not endure well the taking into his system of anything alcoholic. He always became perfectly sober within three hours, but a punch or two would give a certain flaccidity to his legs, and when he reached his home the broad steps leading up to the vestibule seemed Alpine-like and perilous. He would almost say to himself, "Beware the pine-tree's withered branch, beware the awful avalanche." But after all it was not the danger of the ascent which really troubled him; it was what would a.s.suredly happen after he had reached the summit. The disaster always came upon the plateau.

The man could fumble in his pockets with much discretion, and could always find his latch-key, for its shape was odd, but with that latch-key he could not find the keyhole in the door. There came a clamor always at the end. When finally he entered, Mrs. Grampus was as alive and alert as any tarantula of an Arizona plain aroused by a noise upon the trap-door of its retreat. And Mrs. Grampus was a wonderful woman.

Talk about death's-head! Jason B. Grampus would have welcomed one in place of that pallid creature in a night-dress, who met him when he came in weavingly.

Mrs. Grampus, who was known to her husband's inner consciousness as Sophia, was a slender, blue-eyed woman, soft of voice and by day gentle of manner. Her health was not perfect. She knew this, and so did every one she met. While not an invalid, she in her imagination trembled on the edge of invalidism, and upon this subject she was almost loquacious.

She was domestic in her tastes, and ambitious and devoted to her home and family.

She was a model wife and mother, and this, too, she knew; so did her family and friends, for this subject was second in her topics of conversation only to the state of her health; and, furthermore, she was peculiar and almost original in the perfection to which she had brought the fine art of nagging.

Let it not be imagined that she scolded, or said small, mean things, or used any of the processes of the ordinary nagger. Her methods were refined, studied, calculated, and correct. Her style of day-nagging was, to be explicit, to maintain perfect silence as to the grievance under which she suffered--indeed, this was often a profound secret from the first to the last; to adopt the look and bearing of a Christian martyr on the way to the stake, and to keep this demonstration up for days without a gleam of interruption. She shed no tears, made no reproaches; she just looked her agony, sitting, walking, doing anything. This was by day. But at night! How is it that women so have the gift of speech at night? Mrs. Grampus had it in a marvelous degree, and it was the speech which is a thing to dread, penetrating and long-continued. The nerves of Jason B. Grampus were gradually giving way. Some of the finest old gentlemen in every large city in the country know that one's physical condition differs with moods and seasons, and that what may be endured at one time cannot be at another. This lesson was brought forcibly to Jason B. Grampus one morning. He had pa.s.sed his usual evening at the club, had gone home at the usual hour, and had encountered even more difficulty than usual in discovering the keyhole. He made more than the ordinary degree of noise, and had encountered even more than the usual hour or two of purgatory, subsequently. He came down town in the morning heavy-eyed, with a headache, and with spirits undeniably depressed. He sought what relief he could. He first visited the barber, and that deft personage, accustomed, as a result of years of carefully performed duty to the ways and desires of his customer, shaved him with unusual delicacy, keeping cool cloths upon his head during the whole ceremony, and terminating the exercise with a shampoo of the most refreshing character. An extra twenty-five cents was the reward of his devotion.

Mr. Grampus went to his business somewhat improved in physical condition, and by noon was almost himself again. Still, he had a yearning for human sympathy; he could not help it. He saw young Simpson at a table, the only acquaintance who happened to be in the dining-room when he entered, and, led by a sudden impulse, walked over, sat down opposite the young man whose aspirations he had discouraged, and entered into affable conversation with him. From affability the conversation drifted into absolute confidence. Jason B. Grampus could no more have helped being confidential that day to some one than he could help breathing. He told Simpson of his trouble of the night before, and concluded his account with the earnest and almost pitiful exclamation:

"I'd give fifty thousand dollars for a keyhole one could not miss."

Simpson did not reply for a moment. He thought, thought--thought deeply--and then came to him the inspiration of his life. He looked at Grampus half quizzically, but in a manner not to offend, and as if it were merely a jest over a matter already settled, said:

"Would you give your daughter?"

Grampus looked at him puzzled, and then, responding to the joke which seemed but one of hopelessness, he said:

"Well--if I wouldn't!"

He was startled the next second by the uprising of Simpson, who grasped him heartily by the hand, and said:

"I've got the thing! It's a new invention! There is nothing like it in the world! It is going to revolutionize the social relations and make home happy. Write me a note, giving me permission to operate upon your front door!"

The old man sat dazed. It slowly dawned upon his mind that Simpson had caught him in a trap; but the word of Jason B. Grampus had never yet been violated. He thought rapidly himself now. Of course, the young lunatic could not do what he promised! That was impossible. No man could invent a keyhole which a man could not miss at night. There might be some annoyance to it all, but the young fellow could do as he pleased, only to be rebuffed again, this time with no allowance of a subsequent familiarity. And so they parted, the old man wearing a look somewhat perplexed, and the younger one, despite his a.s.sumed jaunty air, exhibiting a little of the same quality of expression.

As a matter of fact, Simpson had not the slightest idea of how such a keyhole and latch-key as he had promised could be made, save that on one occasion he had been the author of a practical little invention utilized in a box-factory, and felt that he had a touch of the inventive genius in his nature. But there was his friend Hastings. It was the thought of Hastings which gave him the inspiration when he spoke to Grampus.

Hastings was one of the cleverest inventors and one of the most prominent among the younger electricians of the city. They were devoted friends, and they would invent the greatest latch-key in the world, or burn half the midnight oil upon the market. This he was resolved upon.

He sought Hastings.

To Hastings Simpson unfolded his tale carefully, leaf by leaf, and interested amazingly that eminent young electrician. Hastings, though now married, the possessor of a baby with the reddest face in all Chicago, and perfectly happy, had himself undergone somewhat of an experience in obtaining the mother of that baby, and so sympathized with Simpson deeply.

"We'll invent that keyhole or latch-key, or break something," was all he said. There were thenceforth meetings every evening between the two--meetings which were sometimes far extended into the night; and the outcome of it all was that one morning, just as the sunbeams came thrusting the white fog over blue Lake Michigan, Simpson sought his own room somewhat weary-eyed, but with a countenance which was simply beatific in expression. The invention had been perfected! What that invention was may as well be described here and now. The first object to be sought was, naturally, a keyhole which could not easily be missed. Of course, this is a non-scientific description of it, but it may convey a fair idea to the average reader. First, instead of the ordinary keyhole there was something exactly resembling the customary mouthpiece through which we whistle upstairs from the ground floor of a flat seeking to attract the people who rarely answer. The only difference between it and the ordinary mouthpiece was that it was set in so that it was even with the woodwork of the door, and did not project at all. This mouthpiece tapered all around inside, and terminated in a keyhole which was rubber-lined. On the other side of this keyhole was a hard surface, padded with rubber, but having just opposite the mouth of the keyhole a small orifice extending through to a metal surface. That metal surface was a section of one of the most powerful horseshoe magnets ever invented in the United States, and was to be imbedded in the woodwork of the door.

It was a huge thing, reaching nearly across the door, and warranted to pull toward it anything magnetic of reasonable dimensions. The keyhole was all the design of Simpson, the electric part of the affair all the invention of Hastings. Combined, they made something beautiful and wonderful.

A key was made and magnetized so thoroughly that never before was a piece of iron so yearningly full of the electric fluid. The whole thing was adjusted against the wall of the room, and then the men brought in the magnetized key to ascertain if their invention would work in practice. Simpson was carrying the key. No sooner had he entered the door than something began to pull him toward the magnet. He walked sideways, like a crab, resistingly, and could not help himself; and then, just as he had nearly reached the bell-shaped keyhole, he was whirled around, as is the end child in a school playground when they are playing "crack-the-whip," fairly in front of the keyhole, and literally hurled toward it, while the key shot fiercely into the lock. But there was not a sound; the rubber cushion had obviated that.

Well, to say that those two young men were delighted would be to use but one of the commonplace, everyday, decent conversational expressions of the English language. They were simply wild.

Since their latest conversation Jason B. Grampus had engaged in no further communication with Simpson. He thought it best to avoid all relations with the young man who could jest on serious occasions; and yet underlying his upper strata of thought was a dim and undefined impression that he would hear from that young man again. He did.

The morning after the perfection of the invention Simpson called upon Mr. Grampus and calmly, coldly, and dignifiedly announced that his lock was complete, and that he was now about to install it in the Grampus front door. He suggested to Mr. Grampus that to avoid any encounters which might be embarra.s.sing, the latter should suddenly discover some fault in his own front door--in the stained gla.s.s, or something of that sort--and have it taken off bodily and sent away to be remodeled; while a temporary door should be put in its place. The old gentleman listened amazed, and thought it all a farce; but then the word of Jason B.

Grampus had gone out, and he must keep his word. "All right," he said.

So the front door was sent down town and another one put in its place, and in that front door down town Simpson and Hastings established and firmly secured the marvelous electric lock and keyhole. Then the door was sent back and put in its place. The same day Simpson called at the office of Mr. Grampus and handed him a key, the ring of which was big enough to hold at least two fingers. Mr. Grampus grinned sardonically over this continuation of the jest.

"That's a big ring," he said.

"I am confident you'll not find it any too large," was Simpson's respectful answer.

The old man grunted. "Will it unlock the door, and how? That is all I want to know."

"It will," said Simpson; and so they parted.

That evening Mr. Grampus spent a late evening at the club, and went home in apprehension. As he neared his residence the apprehension grew. He was wobbly, and he knew it. He ascended the steps with some difficulty, and began fumbling for his latch-key. He had forgotten all about the fact that he had a new one. The remembrance came to him only when he thrust his hand into his pocket, felt the huge key, and drew it forth.

That instant he felt himself leaning forward. Then something happened.

He was literally "yanked" toward that sunken keyhole. His hat smashed against the door (fortunately it was a soft one), and he found himself a minute later leaning against the entrance to his own house, grasping the handle of a latch-key which was in place and which would afford him admission without the slightest sound.

Never was a man who could walk in such condition, who, once inside a door, could not conduct himself with the utmost quietness. Grampus was no exception to the rule. He removed the key with a tug, closed the door softly and stepped into the drawing-room, where for three hours he slept, as sleeps a babe, upon the sofa. It has already been told that only three hours were required to enable Mr. Grampus to recover from three hours' indulgence at the club. He awoke refreshed and clear-headed as a man may be. He straightened out his hat, opened the front door quickly, pulled it to with a bang, as if he had just come in, and stalked upstairs in dignity. Never has a man more conscious and oppressive rect.i.tude than one who has barely escaped a dreadful plight.

No word came from the just-awakened terror in a night-dress. He had been saved--saved by Simpson.

The word of Jason B. Grampus had never been violated, and never could be. His first duty when he reached his office in the morning was to send for Simpson.

"The key worked," he said, "and you may have my daughter."

Simpson has her now and is his father-in-law's partner in business.

Sometimes, looking at the color of his wife's eyes, and the graceful but somewhat square conformation of her jaws, he wonders a little what experiences time may bring him. But she is different from her mother in many ways, and Simpson is a more adaptative and inventive man than his father-in-law ever was. He is not much worried.