Part 4

"You are tired out, Fitz. Isn't it so? I don't wonder when I think of the vast commercial problems you are solvin' every day. Go upstairs, my dear boy, and get into my bed for the night. I won't have you go home. It's too cold for you to go out and the snow is driftin' badly. I'll take the sofa here."

"No, Colonel, I think I'll toddle along home. I am tired, I guess. I ought to be; I've had nothing but hard knocks all day."

"Then you shan't leave my house, suh; I won't permit it. Chad, go upstairs and get Mr. Fitzpatrick's chamber ready for the night, and Chad----"

Fitz laughed. "And have you sleep on that hair-cloth sofa, Colonel?" and he pointed to the sagging lounge.

"Why not?--I've done it befo'. Come, I insist."

Fitz was on his feet now and with Chad's assistance was struggling into his overcoat, which that attentive darky had hung over a chairback that it might dry the easier.

"I'm going home, Colonel, and to bed," Fitz said in a positive tone. "I shouldn't sleep a wink if I knew you were thrashing around on that shake-down, and you wouldn't either. Good-night"; and holding out his hand to his host, he gave me a tap on my shoulder as he passed my chair and left the room, followed by the Colonel.

It was only when the Colonel had found Fitz's rubbers himself and had turned up the collar of his coat and had made it snug around his throat to keep out the snow, and had patted him three times on the shoulder--he only showed that sort of affection to Fitz--and had held the door open until both Fitz and Chad were lost in the gloom of the tunnel, the wind having extinguished the lantern, that the Colonel again resumed his seat by the fire.

"I must say I'm worried about Fitz, Major. He don't look right and he don't act right"--he sighed as he picked up his pipe and sank into his arm-chair until his head rested on its back. "I'm going to have him see a doctor. That's what I'm going to do, and at once. Do you know of a good doctor, Major?"

"Medicine won't help him, Colonel," I answered. I knew the dear old fellow would not sleep a wink even in his own bed if the idea got into his head that Fitz was ill.

"What will?"

"Money."

The Colonel looked at me in astonishment.

"What kind of money?"

"Any kind that's worth a hundred cents on the dollar."

"Why, what nonsense, Major, I'd take Fitz's check for a million."

"Klutchem won't."

"What's the scoundrel got to do with it?"

"Everything, unfortunately. Fitz is short of 10,000 shares of Consolidated Smelting, and Klutchem and his crowd have got about every share of it locked up in their safes. Some of Fitz's customers have gone back on him, and he's got to make the fight alone. If smelting goes up another fifteen points to-morrow Fitz goes with it. It's not a doctor he wants, it's a banker. Cash, not pills, is what will pull Fitz through."

Had a bomb been exploded on the hearth at his feet the Colonel could not have been more astonished. He sat staring into my eyes as I unfolded the story, his face changing with every disclosure; horror at the situation, anger at the man who had caused it, and finally--and this dominated all the others--profound sympathy for the friend he loved. He knew something of the tightening of the grasp of a man like Klutchem and he did not underestimate the gravity of the situation. What Consolidated Smelting represented, or what place it held in the market were unknown quantities to the Colonel. What he really saw was the red flag of the auctioneer floating over the front porch of that friend in Virginia whom the Bank had ruined, and the family silver and old portraits lying in the carts that were to take them away forever. It was part of the damnable system of Northern finance and now Fitzpatrick was to suffer a similar injustice.

"Fitz in Klutchem's power! My God, suh!" he burst out at last, "you don't tell me so! And Fitz never told me a word about it. My po' Fitz! My po' Fitz!" he added slowly with quivering lips. "Are you quite sure, Major, that the situation is as serious as you state it?"

"Quite sure. He told me so himself. He wanted me to keep still about it, but I didn't want you to think he was ill."

"You did right, Major. I should never have forgiven you if you had robbed me of the opportunity of helpin' him. It's horrible; it's damnable. Such men as Klutchem, suh, ought to be drawn and quartered."

For an instant the Colonel leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and looked steadily into the fire; then he said slowly with a voice full of sympathy, and in a tone as if he had at last made up his mind:

"No, I won't disturb the dear fellow to-night. He needs all the sleep he can get."

* * * * *

The Colonel was still in his chair gazing into the fire when I left. His pipe was out; his glass untasted; his chin buried in his collar.

"My po' Fitz!" was all he said as he lifted his hand and pressed my own. "Good-night, Major."