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The Huron Expositor, 1921-12-09, Page 7e' • i T. Tembarom By Frances Hodgson Burnett Toronto—William Briggs. (Continued from last week) "My name's Tembarom. T. Tembar- • It 'sounded like the crudely artless interruption of a person whose per- ceptions left muoh to be desired. T. Ternharom knew what it sounded like. If 'Palliser lost his temper, he would get over the ground faster, and he wanted 'hien to get over .the ground, "I'm afraid I don't understand,"• he replied rather stiffly. 'There was a fellow I knew in New who used to sell type -writers, and he hada thing to say he used to reel ofr when any one looked like a cus- tomer. He used to call it his 'spiel.'" Palliser's quick glance at him ask- ed ghestiona, and his stiffness did not relax itself. "Is this New York chaff?" he in- quired coldly. "No," Tembarom aa'id. "You're not doing it for ten per. He was." "No, not exactly," said Palliser, "Neither would you be doing it for ten per if you went into it" His , voice changed. He became slightly 'haughty. 'Perhaps it was a mistake on my part to think you might care to connect yourself with it. You have not, of course, been in the position to i comprehend such matters." "If 1 was what I look like, that'd stir me up and make me feel had," thought T. Tembarom, with cheerful i comprehension of this, at least. "I'd I Lave to rush in and try to prove to I him that I was as accustomed to big; business as he is, and that it didn't rattle me. The way to do it that would come most natural would be to show 1 was ready to buy a big a block if stock as any other fellow." But the expression of his face did sot change. He only gave a half -awk- ward sort of laugh. "I guess I can learn," he said. Palliser felt the foothold become firmer. The bounder was interested, but, after a bounder's fashion, was either n rvous or imagined that a show of hesitation looked shrewd. The slight hit nade at his inexperience in investmei ` had irritated him and made him feel less cock -sure of him- self. A slightly offended mariner n ight be the best weapon to rely upon. "I thought you might care to have the thing n:. ae clear to you," he con - binned inditi•cren.tly. "I meant to ex- plain. You may take the chance or leave it, as yea ljke, of course. That is nothing to me at this stage of the game. But, after all, we are as I s..id, relatives of a sort, and it is a gigantic opportunity. Suppose we change the subject. Is that the Sun- day Earth I see by you on the table?" He leaned forward to take the paper, as though the subject really were dropped; but, after a seemingly ner- vous suck or two at his pipe, Tem- barom came to his assistance. It wouldn't do to let him quiet down too much. is no Van ,Morganbilt," he said hesitatingly, "but I can see that it's a big opportunity --dor some one else. Let's have a look over the prospectus again." Palliser paused in his unconcerned opening of the copy of the Sunday Earth. His manner somewhat dis- gustedly implied indecision as to whether it was worth while to allow oneself to be dropped and taken up lie turns. "Do you really mean that?" he asked with a certain chill of voice. "Yes. I don't mind trying to catch on to what's doing in any big scheme." Palliser did not day aside his sug- gestion of cold semi -reluctance more readily than any man who knew his business would have laid it aside. His manner at the outset was quite per- fect. His sole ineptitude lay in 'his feeling a too great confidence in the exact quality of his companion's type, as he summed it up. He did not cal- culate on the variations from all type sometimes provided by circumstances. He produced his papers without too obvious eagerness. He spread them upon the table, and coolly examined them 'himself before beginning his ex- planation. There was more to ex- plain to a foreigner and one unused to investment than there would be to a man who was an`Ehglishman and familiar with the methods of large companies, ,he said. He went into technicalities, so to speak, and used rapidly and lightly some imposing words and phrases, to which T. Tem- barom listened attentively, but with- out any special air of illumination He dealt with statistics and the re- sulting probabilities. He made ap- parent the existing condition of Eng- land's inability to supply an enorm- ous and unceasing demand for tim- ber. He had acquired divers excel- lent methods of stating his case to the party of the second part. "He made me feel as if a fellow had better hold on to a box of matches like grim death, and that the time wasn't out of eight when you'd have to give .fifty-seven dollars and a half for a toothpick," Tembarom after- wards said to the duke. What Tembarom was thinking as he listened to him was that he was flat getting over the ground with much rapidity, sad that it Was time something was doing, He had not watched him for weeks without learn- ing divers of his ldiesy'ncraeies. "If be thought I' wanted to know what he thinks I'd s heapnorther not know, he'd never tell me," he specu- lated. "If he gets a bit hot An the collar, he may let it out. Thing is to stir him up. He's lost his nerve a bit and he'll get mad pretty easy." He went on smoking and listening, and asking an unenlightened queabion now and then, in a manner Which was se far from being a deterrent as the largely unillumtnated expression of his face was. "Of course money is wanted," Pal- liser said at length. "Money is 01- , ways wanted, and as muoh when a scheme is a success as when it isn't. Good names, with a certain character, , are wanted. The fact of your inherit- ance is known, everywhere; and the fact that you are an American is a sort of guaranty of shrewdness." "Is it?" said T. Tembarom. "Well," he added slowly, "I guess Americans are pretty 'good business men." - Palliser thought that this was,evoly- ing upon perfectly naturallines, as he had anticipated it would. The fellow was flattered and pleased. You could always reach an American by implying that he was one of those Who specially illustrate enviable national characteristics. He went on in smooth, casual Lauda - ition: "No American takes hold of a scheme of this sert until he knows jelly well what he's going to get out of it. You were shrewd enough," he : added significantly, "about Hutchins• son's affair. You 'got in on the ground floor' there. That was New York forethought, by Jovel" Tembarom shuffled a little in his chair, and grinned •a faint, pleased grin - I'm a man of the world, my boy— the business world," Palliser com- mented, hoping that he concealed his extreme satisfaction. "I know New York, though I haven't lived there. I'm only hoping to. Yotir air of in- genuous ignorance is the cleverest thing about you," which agreeable implication of the fact that .he had been privately observant and impress- ed ought to have fetched the bounder i1 anything would. T. Tembarom's grin was no longer faint, but spread itself. Palliser's first impression was that he had "fetched" him. But when he answer- ed, though the very crudeness of his words seemed merely the result of his betrayal into utter tactlessness by soothed vanity, there was some- thing—a shade of something—not en- tirely satisfactory in his face and nasal twang. "Well, I guess," he said, "New York did teach a fellow not to buy a gold brick off every con mean that came along." Palliser was guilty of a mere ghost eta start. Was there something in it, or was he only the gross, blunder- ing fool -he had trusted to his being? He started at him a moment, and saw that there was something under the words and behind his professed flattered grin — something which+ must be treated with a high 'hand. "What do you mean?" he exclaimed 'haughtily. "I dont like your tone„ Do you take me for what you call a 'con man'?" "Good Lord, no!" answered Tem- barom; and he looked straight at Palliser and spoke slowly. "You're a gentleman, and you're paying me a visit. You could no more try on a game to do me in my own house than —well, than I could tell you if I'd got on to you if I saw you doing it. You're a gentleman," Palliser glared back into his infur- iatingly candid eyes. He was a far cry from being a dullard himself; he was sharp enough to "catch on" to the revelation that the situation was not what he had thought it, the type was more complex than he .had dream- ed. The chap had been playing a part; he had absolutely been "jolly- ing him along," after the New York fashion. He became pale with humil- iated rage, though he knew his only defense was to control himself and profess not to see through the trick. Until he could use his big lever, he added to himself. "Oh, I see," .he commented acridly. "I suppose you don't realize that your figures of speech are unfortu- nate." "That comes of New York streets, too," Temearom answered with delib- eration. 'But you can't live as I've lived and be dead easy—not dead easy." Palliser had left his chair, and stood in contemptuous silence. "You know -how a fellow 'hates to be thought dead easy"—Tembarom actually went to the insolent length of saying the words with a touch of cheerful Jcorufidingness—"when te's not. And 'I'm; not. Have another drink." There was a pause. Palliser began to see, or thought he began to see, where he stood. He had come to Temple Barholm because he had been driven into a corner and had a dan- gerous fight before him. In anticipa- tion of it he had been following a clue for some time, though at the outset it had been one of incredible slightness. Only 'his absolute faith, in his theory that every man had something to gain or lose, which he concealed discreetly, .had led him to it. He held a card too valuable to be used at the beginning of a game. Its power might have lasted a long time and proved an influence without lim- it. He forebore any mental reference to blackmail; the word was absurd. One used what fell into ones hands. If Tembarom had followed. his lead with any degree of docility, he would have felt it wiser to save his ammuni- tion until further ,pressure was nec- essary. But behind his ridieolous rawness, his foolish jocularity, and his professedly candid good humor, had been bidden the Yankee trickster Who was fool enough to teink he could play kis game through. Well, he could not. ' During the few moments' pause he saw the situation as by a photographic flashlight, He leaned over the table and anpplied himself with a fresh brandy and soda from the tray of siphons and decanters. He gave hini- �y -— New Eyes \". l' . Caen,BesllbyNM yea me co Preemie TOUR yE3Use Marine ETA Remade 'Milt and Myir.:se," Kees rose Ryes ,Mean, steer pee ^. s '. rile f--I,r• s Evers, it,' Illhe -::feet. •_, _._ :nee- einee.. -- self time to take the Ow up in his band. "No," besnewered, "you are not 'dead easy.' That's whyI am going to broaeh another subect to yon." Tembarom wait refilling Ills Pipe. "CO ahead," he said. "Who, by the way, is Mr. Strange.. ways?" He was deliberate and entirely un- emotional. So was T. Tembarom when, with match applied to hie tobacco, he replied between puffs as he lighted it: "You can search me. You can search him, too, for that matter. He doaen't know who he is himself." "Badluck for him!" remarked Pal- liser, and allowed a slight pause again. After it he added, "Did it ever strike you it might be good luck for Some- body else?" "Somebody else'?" Tembarom puff- ed more slowly, perhaps because his pipe was lighted. Palliser took some -brandy in his soda, , "There are men you know," he suse- geated, "who can be spared by their relatives. I have some myself, by Jove!" he added with a laugh. "You keep him rather dark, don't you?" "He dosen't like to see people." "Does he object to people seeing him? I saw him once myself." "When you threw the gravel at his window?" Palliser stared contemptuously. "What are you talking about? I did not throw stones at his window," he lied. "I'm not a school -boy." "That's so," Tembarom admitted. "I lam 'him nevertheless. And I can .tell you he gave me rather a start " why?" Palliser half laughed again. He did not mean to go too quickly; he would let the thing get on Tembarom's nerves gradually. "Well, I'm hanged if I didn't take him for a man who is dead." "Enough to give any fellow a jolt," Tembarom admitted again. "It gave me a 'jolt.' Good word, that. But it would give you a bigger one, my dear fellow, if he was the n•an he looked like." "Why?" Tembarom asked laconi- cally. "He looked like Jem Temple Bar - holm." He saw Tembarom start. There could be no denying it. "You thought that? Honest?" he said sharply, as if for a moment he had lost his head. "You thought that?" "Don't be nervous. Perhaps I couldn't have sworn to it. I did not see him very close. T. Tembarom puffed rapidly at his pipe, and only ejaculated: "Oh!" "Of course 'he's dead. If he wasn't" — with a shrug of his shoulders— "Lady Joan Fayre would be Lady Joan Temple Barholm, and the pair would be bringing up an interesting family here." Ile looked about the room, and then, as if suddenly recalling the fact, added, "By George! you'd be selling newspapers, or making them—which was it?—in New York!" It was by no means unpleesing to see that he had made his hit there. T. Tembarom swung about and walked across the room with a suddenly per- turbed expression. "Say, he put it to him, coming back, "are you in earnest, or are just say- ing it to give me a jolt?" Palliser studied him. The American sharpness was not always so keen as it sometimes seemed. His face would have betrayed his uneasiness to the dullest onlooker. "Have you any objection to my see- ing him in his own room?" Palliser inquired. "It does 'him 'harm to see people," Tembarom said, with nervous brusque- a'ess- "It worries him." Palliser smiled a quiet but far from agreeable smile. He enjoyed what he put into it. "Quit so; best to keep him quiet," he returned. "Do you itnow what my advice would be? Put flim in a cem- fortable sanatorium. A lot of stupid investigations would end in nothing, of course, but they'd be a frightfte bore." He thought it extraordinary stupid in T. Tembarom to come nearer to him with an anxious eagerness en- tirely unconcealed, if he really knew what he was doing. "Are you sure that if you saw him close you'd know, se that you could swear to him?" he demanded. "You're extremely nervous, aren't you?" Palliser watched him with smiling coolness. "Of course Jem Temple Barholm is dead; but I've no doubt that if I saw this man of yours I could swear he had remained dead — if I were 'asked." "If you knew him well, you could make me sure. You could swear one way or another. I want to be sure," said Tembarom. "So should I in your place; couldn't be too sure. Well, since you ask me I could swear. I knew him well en- ough. He was one of my most inti- mate enemies. What do you say to letting me see him?" "I would if I could," Tembarom re- plied, as if thinking it over. "I would if I could:' Palliser treated him to the far from pleasing Smile again. "But it's quite impossible -at pres- ent?" he. suggested. "Excitement is not good for him, and all that sort of thing. You want time to think it over." Tembarom's slowly uttered answer, spoken as if he were still consider- ing the .matter, was far from being the one he had expected. "I want time; but that's not the reason you can't see him right now. You can't see him because lie's not here. He's gone." Then it was Palliser who started, 1 taken totally unaware in a manner which disgusted 'him altogether. He i had to pull himself up. "He's gone!" he repeated. "You! are quicker than I thought. You've got him safely away, have you? Well. 1 I told yon a comfortable sanatorium world be a good idea" "Yes, you did." T. Tembarom 'heli - toted, seeming to be thinking it over again. 'Mats so" He laid iris pipe aside because it had gone out. He suddenly sat doves at the table, putting his elbows en it and ,61sT in his hands, with a harried oi[eot of wanting to think it over In a sort of withdrawal from his immediate aur- soundings. This was as it should be, His Yankee readiness had deserted him altogether. . "By Tavel you are nervous!" Pal- liser commented. "It's" hot surpru- ing;-thougglhh. I can sympathise with you." With a markedly casual air ise himself sat down and drew Iris docu- ments toward Mm. "Let us talk of something else," he) said. He .prefer- red to be casual and incidental, if he were allowed. It was always better to suggest .things and let them sink in until people saw the advantage of considering them and you. To man- age a business matter without open argument or too frank a display of weapons was at once more comfort- able and in better taste. "You are making a great 'mistake in not going into this," he suggested amiably. "You could go in now as you went into Hutchinaon's •azairs, 'on the ground floor.' That's a good enough phrase, too. Twenty thousand pounds would make you a million. You Americans understand nothing less than millions" But T. Tembarom did not take him up. He muttered in a worried way from behind his shading hands, "We'll talk about that later." "Why not talk about it now, before anything can interfere?" Palliser per- sisted politely, .almost gently. Tembarom sprang up, restless and excited. He had plainly been plan- ning fast in his. temporary seclusion. "I'm thinking of what you said a- bout Lady Joan," tie burst forth. "Say, she's gone through all this Jem Temple Barholm thing once; it about half killed her. If any ona raised false hopes for her, she'd go through it all again. Once is enough for any woman." His effect at professing heat and strong feeling made a spark of amuse- ment show itself in Palliser's eye. It struck him •as being peculiarly Amer- ican in its affectation of sentiment and chivalry. "I see," he said. "It's Lady Joan you're disturbed about. You want to spare her another shock, I see. You are a considerate fellow, as well as a man of business." "r don't want her to begin to hope if—" "Very good taste on your part." Palliser's polite approval was admir- able, but he tapped lightly on the paper after expressing it. "I don't want to seem to press you about this but don't you feel inclined to consider it? 1 can assure you that an invest- ment of this sort would be a good thing to depend on if the unexpected happened. If you gave me your check now, it would be Cedric stock to -morrow, and quite safe. Suppose you—" "I—I don't believe you were right —about what you thought." The sharp -featured face was changing from pale to red. "You'd have to be able to swear to it, anyhow. and I don't believe you can." He looked at Palliser in eager and anxiou, uncer- tainty. "If you could," he dragged out, "I shouldn't have a cheek book. Where would you be then?" "I should be in comfortable cir- cumstances, dear chap, and so would you if you gave me the money to- night, while you possess •a check- book. It would be only a sort of temporary loan in any case, whatever turned up. The investment would quadruple itself. But there is no time to be lost. Understand that." T. Tembarom broke out into a sort of boyish resentment, "I don't believe he did look 'like .him, anyhow," he cried. "1 believe it's all a bluff." His crude -sounding young swagger had a touch of final desperation in it as he turned on Palliser. "I'm dead sure it's a bluff. What a fool I was not to think of that! You want to bluff me into go- ing into this Cedric thing. You could no more swear he was like him ' than—than I could." The outright, presumptuous, bold I stripping bare of his phrases infuri- I ated Palliser too suddenly and too much. He stepped up to him and looked into his eyes. "Bluff you, you young bounder!" he flung out at him. "You're losing your head, You'rernot in New York streets here. You are talking to a gentleman. "No," he said furiously, "I couldn't swear that he was like him, but what I can swear in any court of justice is that the. man I saw at the window .was Jem Temple Barholm, and no other man on earth." When ke had said it, he saw the astonishing jolt chance his expres- , sion utterly again, as if in a flash. He stood up, putting his hands in his .pockets. His face changed, his voice changed. "Fine!" he said. "First-rate! That's what I wanted to get on to." CHAPTER XXXIV After this climax the interview was not so long as it was interesting. Two men as far apart as the poles, as remote from each other in mind and body, in training and education or lack of it,- in desires and inten- tions, in points of view and trend of being, as nature and circumstances could make them, talked in a lang- uage foreign to each other of a wild- ly strange thing. Palliser's arguments and points of aspect were less un- known to T. Tembarom than his own were to Palliser. He had seen some- thing very like them before, though they had developed in different sur- roundings and 'had been differently expressed. The colloquialism "You're not doing that for your health" can be made to cover much ground in the way of the stripping bare of motives for action. This was what, in excellent and well-chosen English, 'Captain ,Palliser frankly said to his host. Of nothing which T. Tembarom said to him in his own statement did he believe one word or syllable. The statement in question was not long or detailed. It was, of course. Palliser saw, a ridiculously impudent flinging together of a farrago of nonsense, transparent is its effort beyond be- lief. Before he had 'I-ieeve infa- nte* with the distillptly� ."ne.ty" ensile, he burst out Iso fig. "That ie a good. 'spiel my dear chap," he said. "It's as good a 'epic' all your typewriter friend used to rattle of when be .thought he saw a customer; but I'm not a cuatomer. Tembarom hooked at him interest- edly for about ten seconds. His;, halide were threat into bis trousers pockets, as was his almost invariable custom. Absorption end speculation,. even emotion and excitement, were usually expressed in this unconven- tional manner, "You don't believe a darned word ' of it," was his sole observation, - "Not a darned word;" Palliser smiled. "You are trying a 'bluff,' which doesn't do credit to your us ual sharpness. It's a bluff that is 1 actually silly. It makes you look like an ass." "Well, it's true," said Tembarom; "it's true." Palliser laughed again. "I only said it made you look bite an ass," he remarked. I don't pro - 1 fess to understand you altogether, because you are a new species. Your combination of ignorance and sharp- news isn't easy to calculate on. But they is one thing I have found out, and that is, thatx When you want . to play a particular sharp trick you are willing to let people take you for a fool. P11 own you have de- ceived me once or twice, even when I suspected you. I've heard that's one of the most successful methods used in the American business world. That's why I only say you look like an ass. You are an ass' in some re- spects; but you are letting yourself look like one now for some shrewd end. You either think you'll slip out of danger by it when I make this discovery public, or you think you'll somehow trick me into keeping my mouth shut" '`I needn't trick you into keeping your mouth shut," Tembarom sug- gested. "There's a straight way to do that, ain't there?" And he in- delicately waved his band toward the documents pertaining to the Cedric Company. It was stupid as well as gross, in his hearer's opinion. If he had known what was good for him he would' 'have •beep, clever enough to ignore the practical presentation of his case made half an hour or so earlier. "No, there is not," Palliser re- plied, with serene mendacity. "No suggestion of that sort has been made. My business proposition was given out on an entirely different basis. You, of course, choose to put your personal construction upon its' "Gee whiz!" ejaclulated T. Tem- barom. "I was 'way off, wasn't I?" "I told you that professing to be an ass wouldn't be good enough in this case. Don't go on with it," said Palliser, sharply, "You're throwing bouquets. Let a fellow be natural," said Tembarom. "That is bluff too," Palliser replied more sharply still. "I am not taken in by it, hold as it is. Ever since you came here, you have been play- ing this game. It was you're fool's grin and guffaw and pretence of good nature that first made me su- spect you of having something up your sleeve. You were too unem- barrassed and candid." "So you began to look out," Tem- barom said, considering him curious - suddenly he laughed outright, the fool's guffaw. It somehow gave Palliser a sort. of puzzled shock. It was so hearty that it remotely suggested that to appeared more secure than seemed possible. He tried to reply to him with a languid contempt of manner. "You think you have some tre- mendously sharp 'deal' in your 'hand, he said," "but you had better re- member you are in England where facts are like sledge hammers. You can't dodge from under them as you can in America. I dare say you won't' answer me, but I should like to ask you what you propose to do." "I don't know what I'm going to ' do any more than you do," was the unilluminating answer." I don't mind telling you that." "And what do you think he will do?' 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