The Rise of Silas Lapham

When Bartley Hubbard went to interview Silas Lapham for the “Solid Men of Boston” series, which he undertook to finish up in The Events, after he replaced their original projector on that newspaper, Lapham received him in his private office by previous appointment.

“Walk right in!” he called out to the journalist, whom he caught sight of through the door of the counting-room.

He did not rise from the desk at which he was writing, but he gave Bartley his left hand for welcome, and he rolled his large head in the direction of a vacant chair. “Sit down! I’ll be with you in just half a minute.”

“Take your time,” said Bartley, with the ease he instantly felt. “I’m in no hurry.” He took a notebook from his pocket, laid it on his knee, and began to sharpen a pencil.

“There!” Lapham pounded with his great hairy fist on the envelope he had been addressing.

“William!” he called out, and he handed the letter to a boy who came to get it. “I want that to go right away. Well, sir,” he continued, wheeling round in his leather-cushioned swivel-chair, and facing Bartley, seated so near that their knees almost touched, “so you want my life, death, and Christian sufferings, do you, young man?”

“That’s what I’m after,” said Bartley. “Your money or your life.”

“I guess you wouldn’t want my life without the money,” said Lapham, as if he were willing to prolong these moments of preparation.

Lapham drove there with his wife after he had set Bartley Hubbard down at the Events office, but on this day something happened that interfered with the solid pleasure they usually took in going over the house. As the Colonel turned from casting anchor at the mare’s head with the hitching-weight, after helping his wife to alight, he encountered a man to whom he could not help speaking, though the man seemed to share his hesitation if not his reluctance at the necessity. He was a tallish, thin man, with a dust-coloured face, and a dead, clerical air, which somehow suggested at once feebleness and tenacity.

Mrs. Lapham held out her hand to him.

“Why, Mr. Rogers!” she exclaimed; and then, turning toward her husband, seemed to refer the two men to each other. They shook hands, but Lapham did not speak. “I didn’t know you were in Boston,” pursued Mrs. Lapham. “Is Mrs. Rogers with you?”

“No,” said Mr. Rogers, with a voice which had the flat, succinct sound of two pieces of wood clapped together. “Mrs. Rogers is still in Chicago.”

A little silence followed, and then Mrs. Lapham said⁠—

“I presume you are quite settled out there.”

“No; we have left Chicago. Mrs. Rogers has merely remained to finish up a little packing.”

“Oh, indeed! Are you coming back to Boston?”

“I cannot say as yet. We sometimes think of so doing.”

Lapham turned away and looked up at the building. His wife pulled a little at her glove, as if embarrassed, or even pained. She tried to make a diversion.

The young man went to see Colonel Lapham shortly after his return to Boston. He paid his visit at Lapham’s office, and if he had studied simplicity in his summer dress he could not have presented himself in a figure more to the mind of a practical man. His hands and neck still kept the brown of the Texan suns and winds, and he looked as businesslike as Lapham himself.

He spoke up promptly and briskly in the outer office, and caused the pretty girl to look away from her copying at him. “Is Mr. Lapham in?” he asked; and after that moment for reflection which an array of bookkeepers so addressed likes to give the inquirer, a head was lifted from a ledger and nodded toward the inner office.

Lapham had recognised the voice, and he was standing, in considerable perplexity, to receive Corey, when the young man opened his painted glass door. It was a hot afternoon, and Lapham was in his shirtsleeves. Scarcely a trace of the boastful hospitality with which he had welcomed Corey to his house a few days before lingered in his present address. He looked at the young man’s face, as if he expected him to despatch whatever unimaginable affair he had come upon.

“Won’t you sit down? How are you? You’ll excuse me,” he added, in brief allusion to the shirtsleeves. “I’m about roasted.”

Corey laughed. “I wish you’d let me take off my coat.”

“Why, take it off!” cried the Colonel, with instant pleasure. There is something in human nature which causes the man in his shirtsleeves to wish all other men to appear in the same deshabille.

Penelope had gone to her sister’s room as soon as she entered the house.

“Is your head any better, ’Rene?” she asked.

“Yes, a little,” came a voice from the pillows. “But I shall not come to tea. I don’t want anything. If I keep still, I shall be all right by morning.”

“Well, I’m sorry,” said the elder sister. “He’s come down with father.”

“He hasn’t! Who?” cried Irene, starting up in simultaneous denial and demand.

“Oh, well, if you say he hasn’t, what’s the use of my telling you who?”

“Oh, how can you treat me so!” moaned the sufferer. “What do you mean, Pen?”

“I guess I’d better not tell you,” said Penelope, watching her like a cat playing with a mouse. “If you’re not coming to tea, it would just excite you for nothing.”

The mouse moaned and writhed upon the bed.

“Oh, I wouldn’t treat you so!”

The cat seated herself across the room, and asked quietly⁠—

“Well, what could you do if it was Mr. Corey? You couldn’t come to tea, you say. But he’ll excuse you. I’ve told him you had a headache. Why, of course you can’t come! It would be too barefaced. But you needn’t be troubled, Irene; I’ll do my best to make the time pass pleasantly for him.” Here the cat gave a low titter, and the mouse girded itself up with a momentary courage and self-respect.