Part 10

"Then it isn't about Colonel Carter?" said Fitz coldly.

He had all the Consolidated he wanted and didn't see where Klutchem could be of the slightest use in straightening out anything.

"I'll attend to him later," replied Klutchem, and a curious expression overspread his face. "You heard about it, then?"

"Heard about it! I bailed him out. If you wanted to lock anybody up why didn't you get after some one who knew the ropes, not a man like the Colonel who never had a dishonest thought in his head and who is as tender-hearted as a child."

"You don't know what you're talking about," flared Klutchem. "He came down with a cock-and-bull story and wanted me to take----"

"I know the whole story, every word of it. He came down to offer you every dollar of his interest in a scheme that is as real to him as if the bonds were selling on the Exchange at par. They are all he has in the world, and if some miracle should occur and they should be worth their face value he would never touch a penny of the proceeds if he was starving to death, because of the promise he made you. And in my interest, too, not his own, and all for love of me, his friend."

"But it was only a letter from a concern offering to print----"

"Certainly. And across it he had written his name--both, I grant you, not worth the paper they were written on. But why didn't you have the decency to humor the dear old fellow as we all do, and treat him with the same courtesy with which he treated you, instead of insulting him by throwing the letter in his face. You'll excuse me, Mr. Klutchem, when I say it gets me pretty hot when I think of it. I don't blame him for cracking you over the head, and neither would you, if you understood him as I do."

Klutchem looked out of the window and twisted his thumbs for an instant as if in deep thought. The outcome of the interview was of the utmost importance to him, and he did not want anything to occur which would prejudice his case with the broker. Fitz sat in front of him, bent forward, his hands on his knees, his eyes boring into Klutchem's.

Then a puzzled, and strange to say what appeared to be a more kindly expression broke over Klutchem's face.

"I guess I was rough, but I didn't mean it, really. You know how it was yesterday--regular circus all day. I wouldn't have made the charge at the police-station--for he didn't hurt me much--if the policeman hadn't compelled me. And then don't forget, this isn't the first time I've come across him. He came to my house once when I was laid up with the gout, and----"

"Yes," interrupted Fitz, "I haven't forgotten it, and what did he come for? To apologize, didn't he? I should have thought you'd have seen enough of him at that time to know what kind of a man he was. Down here in the Street we've got to put things down on paper and we don't trust anybody. We don't understand the kind of a man whose word is literally as good as his bond, and who, to help any man he calls his friend, would spend his last cent and go hungry the balance of his life. I've lived round here a good deal in my time and I've seen all kinds of men, but the greatest compliment I ever had paid me in my life was when the Colonel offered you yesterday the scrap of paper that you threw back in his face."

As Fitz talked on Klutchem's tightly knit brows began to loosen. He hadn't heard such things for a good many years. Life was a scramble and devil take the hindermost with him. If anybody but Fitz--one of the level-headed men in the Street--had talked to him thus, he might not have paid attention, but he knew Fitz was sincere and that he spoke from his heart. The still water at the bottom of the banker's well--the water that was frozen over or sealed up, or so deep that few buckets ever reached it--began to be stirred. His anxiety over Consolidated only added another length to the bucket's chain.

"Fitzpatrick, I guess you're right. What ought I to do?"

"You ought to go up to his house this very day and beg his pardon, and then wipe out that idiotic charge you made at the police-station."

"I will, Fitzpatrick."

"You will?"

"Yes."

"There's my hand. Now bring out your Consolidated Smelting, and I'll do what's decent."

At four o'clock that same day Fitz, with Mr. Klutchem beside him, swung back the wicket-gate of the tunnel, traversed its gloom, crossed the shabby yard piled high with snow heaped up by Chad's active shovel, and rapped at the front door of the little house.

The Colonel was in his chair by the fire. I had just told him the good news, and he and I were sampling a fresh bottle of the groceryman's Madeira in celebration of the joyous turn in Fitz's affairs, when Chad with eyes staring from his head announced:

"Misser Klutchem and Misser Fitzpatrick."

What the old darky thought was coming I do not know, but I learned afterwards, that as soon as he had closed the door behind the visitors, he mounted the stairs three steps at a time, grabbed up the case of pistols from his master's dressing-table, pulled the corks from their mouths, and hurrying down laid the case and its contents on the hall table to be ready for instant use.

The announcement of Klutchem's name brought the Colonel to his feet as straight as a ramrod.

"It's all right, Colonel," said Fitz, noting the color rise in his friend's face. "Mr. Klutchem and I have settled all our differences. He has just offered me a barrel of Consolidated, and at my own price. That fight's all over, and I bear him no grudge. As to yourself, he has come up to tell you how sorry he is for what occurred yesterday, and to make any reparation to you in his power."

Klutchem had not intended to go so far as that, and he winced a little under Fitz's allusion to the "barrel," but he was in for it now, and would follow Fitz's lead to the end. Then again, the papers in the Consolidated matter would not be signed until the morning.

"Yes, Carter, I'm sorry. Fact is, I misunderstood you. I was very busy, you remember, and I'm sorry, too, for what occurred at the police-station; that, however, you know I couldn't help."

The omission of the Virginian's title scraped the skin from the Colonel's amour propre, but the words "I'm sorry" coming immediately thereafter healed the wound.