The rise of that industry had been meteoric, dramatic! A prosperous young bicycle factory turned its attention to the experimental manufacture of a horseless carriage, as a tentative sideline. Young Merrick’s stockholders were frankly sceptical of the venture in the face of public hilarity over the noisy, undependable, cumbersome, dangerous gasoline buggy.
And then—one day—the power-driven vehicle was suddenly an accepted fact. But the distance between the fox-statured eohippus and the draft horse was no wider than that of the evil-smelling little rattle-trap of an automobile, when Nicholas Merrick first made its acquaintance, and the strong, swift, silent, streamline motorcar which eventually developed.
Its evolution involved hazards as foolhardy as investments at Monte Carlo. A bewildering succession of revolutionizing inventions made the business over, again and again, while investors wrung their hands and shrieked discordant counsel into the ears of apprehensive directors. Costly machinery, installed yesterday, would be scrapped today to be replaced by costlier tomorrow. Those were days when the man who bore the final responsibility for such a chaotic enterprise found that twenty-four hours’ devotion to business was demanded by this unprecedented industry, plunging impetuously over an uncharted course, narrowly skirting ruin every few weeks, and turning sharp corners every day.
Responsive to general clamour, prophetic of great fortunes to be made, innumerable companies hastily entered the motor-mart where competition became merciless, unscrupulous. Disaster was inevitable for all but a few of the keenest, the bravest, the luckiest. Merrick experienced all the anxiety of a pioneer leading a long wagon-train of scared emigrants across a trackless desert without a compass. For fully thirty years, but little of his time or thought had been deflected from his exacting responsibility.
When, therefore, at seventy-two, he wearily dismounted from the tiger he had ridden—an event which called for a brilliant complimentary banquet at the Chamber of Commerce in the suburban town of Axion—he was a very tired old man with a fortune estimated at twenty millions, a high blood pressure, and a large stock of disquieting memories.
Clif … God!—what a tragedy! … Clif’s mother—a timid, brown thrush of a woman—had died when the boy was twelve. Nicholas had scarcely missed her. They had built the big shops, that year. He saw little of the boy. Occasionally there would be a brief and stormy session—Nicholas violently hortatory, Clifford calmly insolent—but nothing ever came of it beyond estrangement.
Nobody could say he had not done his utmost to surround his son with opportunities. Surely if money could have done it, Clif had a chance. Nicholas had always silenced his own misgivings with that reply.
“God knows I’ve spent enough on him! … I can’t nurse him, myself!”
But now that enforced idleness had brought opportunity for serious reflection, Nicholas milled it all over, elbows on knees, empty hands dangling. The old alibi was no good. Nor was there any reasonable expectation of better things to be expressed by the new generation. Bobby was a lovable youngster, to be sure. Nicholas rejoiced in his steady wit, his winning smile, his unfailing consideration of his grandfather’s moods, but he gave no promise of success. Beyond the fact that he played the piano like a professional artist, possessed an unusual capacity for making and retaining friendships, and had contrived to finish his college course, Bobby held out no encouragement that he would ever do anything worth a thought. He would drive and drink, gamble and golf, hunt and fish, marry some dizzy, dissipated, scarlet-lipped little flapper and tire of her; he would summer in Canada, winter in Cannes, clip his coupons, confer with his tailor, subsidize the symphony orchestra, appear on the stationery of a few charities and on the platform when the Republican candidate for President came to town; and, ultimately, be pushed into a crypt in the big, echoing, gothic mausoleum alongside Clifford, the waster.
Oh, there had been an occasional ray of hope; a mere phosphorescence; just enough to make the darkness a little more dense when the flash was over.
On the last day of his grandson’s senior year … it was a mid-year class, with ceremonies deferred until commencement … Nicholas had driven over to the little city of the State University, lunching with his old-time friend the head of the Department of Chemistry. He had straightened and beamed when Professor Garland said, “I don’t know whether you’re aware of it, Merrick, but that wild young cub of yours has the making of a chemist.”
“Honest? Speak to him about it; won’t you, Garland? It would mean more—coming from you!”
Garland had made a lengthy rite of mixing his tea and hot water before replying, “Chemistry’s hard work, old chap! Your boy knows he doesn’t have to work!”
And when Nicholas’ face fell, Garland added, consolingly, “You can’t blame him. Why should he put on a rubber apron and puddle in nasty stews and noxious stinks when he can get some joy out of life.”
Tonight a great weight had been lifted from old Nicholas. He had not been prepared for the news of his good fortune, and though his spirit sang, his sagging shoulders testified to the gravity of the load he had now thrown off. He laid a brown, parchment-coloured hand affectionately on Bobby’s arm, and together they sauntered from the dining-room into the spacious library. This was the old man’s sanctuary. The walls were covered, literally from walnut-beamed ceiling to Chinese rug, with cases filled with unexcelled and unexplored classic literature. The mental pabulum on which Nicholas fed, these days, consisted for the most part of mystery stories strangely alike in plot and technique. It was not that Nicholas had no mind for better reading. It was only that he was tired of thinking.
They strolled into the library, and the weary old fellow sank with a sigh into the depths of his favourite chair. A gaudy-jacketed detective story lay, face downward, on the table. Bobby took it up, read its title aloud, and grinned.
“Light, Grandpère?”
He offered a
