Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 71, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1909 — PAID IN FULL [ARTICLE]

PAID IN FULL

Novelized From Eugene ' Welter’s Great Play

By JOHN W. HARDING

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS.

CHAPTER I—lntroduces1 —Introduces Captain Amos Williams, president of the Latin-Ameri-can Steamship company, in very bad humor over a threatened strike of his dock laborers. Joseph Brooks, underpaid accountant and collector for Williams, expresses his sympathy for the strikers and is ridiculed by his fellow clerks. U—The president sends for James Smith, superintendent of the company’s docks, and instructs him to spare no expense in crushing the strikers. Smith advises pacific measures, but is overruled and prepares to obey orders. Ill—Mrs. Emma Brooks, the handsome young wife of the discontented clerk, tries to encourage him on his return to their bandbox apartment, but he is bitter against his employer and also against his wife’s mother and sister, who dislike him on account of his inability to gain position. In his desperation he turns on his wife and suggests that she must regret her choice of him when she might have had Smith, who had offered himself. IV—Smith, who is the intimate friend of the family, makes his appearance on the scene, and Brooks continues his bitter arraignment of his employer and violent protest against his own Impoverished condition. The discussion becomes rather personal, and Brooks takes his hat and leaves the premises. V—Accompanied by Captain Williams, who is an old frlond of the family, Mrs. Harris and daughter Beth, mother and sister of Mrs. Brooks, enter the room. During the visit Brooks returns, and makes a scene, accusing Williams of being the cause of his unhappiness. Mrs. Brooks reminds her husband of his breach of hospitality, and he apollgises and leaves the bouse. VI When Brooks returns he astonishes his wife and Smith by inviting them to go to the theater. Smith offers to lend him *lO, but he declines. Brooks extracts *lO from a roll of money collected for the company. Vll—Smith prevents a strike. VlH—Williams and Smith go to South America, and Brooks' prospects improve. Brooks tells his wife that he has been promoted and money is plentiful. The couple move into an expensive apartment hotel, and Mrs. Harris ceases to reproach them for their poverty. IX— Smith makes his appearance suddenly and informs Brooks that Williams knows of his dishonesty and that the going to South America was only a scheme to entrap him and that he is shadowed by detectives. X and Xl—Smith tries to prepare Mrs. Brooks for the exposure by telling a story. Williams enters, and Emma thanks him for the change in their circumstances. He looks amaxed, and Smith tries to avoid a climax. The captain takes the cue and holds his peace. Brooks enters suddenly and is terrified. Williams goes, and Smith tries to keep up the delusion, but Brooks breaks down and confesses all to his wife. She asks Smith to leave them. Xll—Emma endeavors to comfort him with her love and sympathy. Maddened by his disgrace and peril, he accuses her of being the cause of his downfall. She declares herself willing to do anything to save him, and he asks he to go alone, late at night as it is, to Williams’ bachelor apartment and obtain his freedon. He tells her that the captain is fond of her and will do what she asks. When she realizes the baseness of the proposition she is stunned, but finally consents. Brooks arranges

CHAPTER XIIL REMORSE may be the least active of all the moral senses. , Still, there is no heart absolutely without it No sooner had bis wife passed from his view than it became active in Brooks, having been fired by the flicker of shame that the full realization of his villainy had provoked as he took down the receiver of the telephone to call Captain Williams. In forcing Emma to deliver herself into the hands of his employer he-had not actually believed that it would be necessary for her to make the supreme sacrifice. “You can handle him all right” he had told her. “You know how far you can let a man go—all women know that” But he had been willing to take the chance that this sacrifice would be exacted, and. knowing only too well the brutal sensuousness of Williams, his notorious depravity and that he had cast what he bad taken to be longing eyes on Emma, be now had no doubt whatever that it would be. The captain was not the man to give anything for nothing, to part with money without receiving full value. With hts g*at physical strength and bls will that overbore and wore down all opposition, bow would the gentle, submissive nature of Emma be able to hold out against him? Reduced to helplessness by his all dominating power, with the alternative of compliance or their ruin held out to her, she would have to submit. Brooks pictured the scene as though it were being enacted before him, and he went hot and cold, and a sweat of agony broke out all over him. “No, no, nof’ He uttered aloud the protest wrung from bls writhing soul by his half resuscitated manhood. He clutched his throat, struck himself in the mouth with such violence that his teeth cut his underlip and the blood dyed his chin, seized his bat and dashed wildly for the door. Fear met him there and held up a restraining finger. Downstairs were the three central office detectives. On the morrow, in a few hours, at the office where he had worked for five years, these men, at the behest of his employer, .would place their hands on bls arms, and he would be under arrest He saw himself being led out, handcuffed, under the mocking eyes of his fellow clerks and the customers. He closed the door again and turned from it, cowardice at his heels, whispering sophistic prudence, counseling the poltroon's discretion, throwing specious sops tox his conscience. Something had to be done. No other course than that he bad taken had been possible Under the circumstances. Between him and state prison stood

Emma. She alone on earth could save him, if salvation were possible. Punishment and immunity at that moment perhaps held the balance even. The giving or withholding of a kiss would turn the scales either way. The giving of It would brand him with that particular stamp of Infamy which when recognized by men caused them to draw away with rising gorge and spurn the bearer. But none would know of the sacrifice—no one save the victim, Williams and himself. Other women had done x as much In pressing emergencies to save their husbands from public dishonor. Some had bargained their favors to Insure office or advancement for husbands or sons, some for dress and jewels their husbands could not give them. He himself would never seek to know just what had passed between his wife and the captain. He was free to assume that he had worried unnecessarily; that nothing of what he felt certain was happening had occurred, to surmise that it had not been necessary for Emma to resort to complete surrender. What he did not know could not trouble him. Anyhow, it was too late now. The die had been cast The chief thing—nay, the one thing—he had to fear was that her mission might be unsuccessful; that she could not purchase his freedom at any price whatsoever. The possibility of this twisted his selfish heart with anguish again. Oh, why had he got himself Into this trouble? When goaded to desperation and recklessness he had taken the first $lO from the money he had collected he had no Idea of not returning it—somehow. It had brought a good deal of pleasure to Emma and himself, lightened their hard penury with a gleam of brightness. But $lO then had been a lot of money. It had not been possible to replace it at once. It was far easier to fix his accounts so that the sum would not be missed. He had yielded to the temptation and had so fixed them.

Jenkins, his fellow employee in the office, was a follower of horse racing In his small way. Now and then he risked a dollar or two in a nearby pool room, and sometimes he won. A few days after Brooks had falsified the books to cover up his deficit of $lO Jenkins had confided to his office cronies that he had a tip of which he felt so sure that he was prepared to pawn his last shoestring to back it Many others had decided to take a chance, and, having no money of his own, Brooks had taken an advance on his salary out of his collections and followed their example. The odds they had obtained were 6 to 1, and the horse had won. Out of his winnings Brooks had replaced the money he had helped himself to. The pool room and the availability of the company’s money had offered to him a great opportunity to win what he could not earn, and, encouraged by bls first success, he had taken advantage ot it. He had begun by making a study of racing and risking small sums. Luck had been with him, and he had won time and time again. He had wanted his wife to share his good fortune, but had not dared to tell her how he had obtained the money, so he had invented the story of outside work. His run of luck had continued, however, until it had become phenomenal, and this it was that had caused his extravagant optimism. He had wagered larger and larger sums until his winnings had represented a secret bank account of $3,000. It was one day when he had “plunged” and won a thousand dollars that he had conceived the fiction of his promotion with reward of back pay. Soon after their installation in their more expensive quarters, however, a series of reverses had come. His luck had deserted him. First his bank account went; then he had drawn on the collections in his efforts to retrieve his losses. He bad plunged and lost. t*lunged and won, plunged again and lost. It bad not been long before his “borrowings” had reached such a terrifying amount that he had realized that discovery was inevitable unless he could replace the money within brief delay. He had clung to the despairing hope that by wagering heavily he could win enough during Williams’ absence to hide bls pilfering and postpone examination. While this could be deferred there wds hope. Now he knew that his cunning, relentless employer had been watching his gradually tottering progress on the tight rope of dishonesty and, preparing a trap to catch him in, had chosen his own time to spring it. At the thought of this Brooks worked himself Into a perfect frenzy of fury. He raged up and down the room, cursing Williams, and hurled a cushion to the floor and ground it with his foot as though it were his enemy’s hated face. "You have cheated me out of a living, you fiend!” he almost howled. “And now you have taken my wife!” The sound of his own voice startled and calmed him, and he peeped out in the corridor apprehensively, for fear any one might by chance have been nigh and heard him. He was exhausted by the violence of his paroxysm. His breath came quickly in gasps, and he stood with staring eyes and heaving bosom until the nervous reaction set In. Then he staggered to the sofa, threw himself upon It and burst into tears. The lachrymose effusion was of brief duration, and it was succeeded by deep dejection. He sat up and glanced at his watch. It was 11 o’clock. One after another he got all the papers and magazines there were, only to throw them Impatiently to the floor. It was impossible for him to read them. Emma had been gone a long time. What was detaining her-what; e» cept— His face began to twitch. He rose,

lit a clgarefteTtbbk two putts at it and put It down. After all, the chief thing was that she should be successful He filled a glass with water that • bellboy had brought up iced for bls mother-in-law and drained It at a draft. Then he picked up the newspaper nearest to him and tried to read again, but it was useless. He threw it down. What if Williams had refused to be persuaded? The suspense was becoming unendurable. A look of determination came into his face, and he went to the telephone, but as his hand touched it he changed his mind, walked back to the table and lit another cigarette. Then he went to the window and stared out at the opposite houses with unseeing eyes. Presently his hand sought his watch pocket. The timepiece it drew out marked ten minutes past 11. He held it to bls ear. It was ticking steadily. Only ten minutes since he had looked at it before! Impossible! Fully an hour had elapsed. The watch must have stopped in the interim. Impatient, he went to the telephone and asked for the right time. The hotel clerk replied that It was just ten minutes past 11. On his way to the table to get another cigarette he happened to catch sight of himself in the mirror over the mantelpiece. The thin, haggard, ashen visage he saw there frightened him. He laughed nervously. As ho did so the door behind him opened. Starting so violently that he let fall the box of cigarettes, he turned. Mrs. Harris, In high dudgeon, walked in, followed by Beth. (To be Continued.)