Idolatry: Chapter 7

Chapter 7

A QUARREL.

That same afternoon Mr. MacGentle put his head into the outer office
and said, "Mr. Dyke, could I speak with you a moment?"

Mr. Dyke scraped back his chair and went in, with his polished bald
head, and square face and figure,--a block of common-sense. He was
more common-sensible than usual, that afternoon, because he had so
strangely forgotten himself in the morning. Mr. MacGentle was in his
usual position for talking with his confidential clerk,--standing up
with his back to the fireplace, and his coat-tails over his arms.
Experience had taught him that this attitude was better adapted than
any other to sustain the crushing weight of Mr. Dyke's sense. To have
conversed with him in a sitting position would have been to lose
breath and vitality before the end of five minutes.

"Mr. Helwyse has thoughts of settling in Boston to practise his
profession," began the President, gently. "I told him you would be
likely to know what the chances are."

"Profession is--what?" demanded Mr. Dyke, settling his fist on his
hip.

"O--doctor--physician; eye-doctor, he said, I think."

"Eye-doctor? Well, Dr. Schlemm won't last the winter; may drop any
day. Just the thing for Mr. Helwyse,--Dr. Helwyse." And the subject,
being discussed at some length between the two gentlemen, took on a
promising aspect. His house was picked out for the new incumbent, his
earnings calculated, his success foretold. Two characters so diverse
as were the President and his clerk united, it seems, in liking the
young physician.

"Married?" asked Mr. Dyke, after a pause.

"Why, no,--no; and he doesn't seem inclined to marry. But he is quite
young; perhaps he may, later on in life, Mr. Dyke."

The elderly clerk straightened his mouth. "Matter of taste--and
policy. Gives solidity,--position;--and is an expense and a
responsibility." Mr. Dyke himself was well known to be the husband of
an idolized wife, and the father of a despotic family.

"He never had the advantage of woman's influence in his childhood, you
know. His poor mother died in giving him and his sister birth; and the
sister was lost,--stolen away, two or three years later. He does not
appreciate woman at her true value," murmured MacGentle.

"Stolen away? His sister died in infancy,--so I understood, sir,"
said the clerk, whose versions of past events were apt to differ from
the President's.

But the President--perhaps because he was conscious that his memory
regarding things of recent occurrence was treacherous--was abnormally
sensitive as to the correctness of his more distant reminiscences.

"O no, she was stolen,--stolen by her nurse, just before Thor Helwyse
went to Europe, I think," said he.

"Beg your pardon, sir," said Mr. Dyke, with an iron smile;
"died,--burnt to death in her first year,--yes, sir!"

"Mr. Dyke," rejoined MacGentle, dignifiedly, lifting his chin high
above his stock, "I have myself seen the little girl, then in her
third year, pulling her brother's hair on the nursery floor. She was
dark-eyed,--a very lovely child. As to the burning, I now recollect
that when the house in Brooklyn took fire, the child was in danger,
but was rescued by her nurse, who herself received very severe
injuries."

Mr. Dyke heaved a long, deliberate sigh, and allowed his eyes to
wander slowly round the room, before replying.

"You are not a family man, Mr. MacGentle, sir! Don't blame you, sir!
Your memory, perhaps--But no matter! The nurse who stole the child
was, I presume, the same who rescued her from the fire?"

Mr. Dyke perhaps intended to give a delicately ironical emphasis to
this question, but his irony was apt to be a rather unwieldy and
unmistakable affair. The truth was, he was a little staggered by the
President's circumstantial statement; whence his deliberation, and his
not entirely pertinent rejoinder about "a family man."

"And why not the same, sir? I ask you, why not the same?" demanded Mr.
MacGentle, with slender imperiousness.

But, by this time, Mr. Dyke had thought of a new argument.

"The little girl, I understood you to say, was dark? Since she was the
twin-sister of one of Mr. Balder Helwyse's complexion, that is odd,
Mr. MacGentle,--odd, sir." And the solid family man fixed his sharp
brown eyes full upon the unsubstantial bachelor. The latter's delicate
nostrils expanded, and a pink flush rose to his faded cheeks. He was
now as haughty and superb as a paladin.

"I will discuss business subjects with my subordinates, Mr. Dyke; not
other subjects, if you please! This dispute was not begun by me. Let
it be carried no further, sir! Twins are not necessarily, nor
invariably, of the same complexion. Let nothing more be said, Mr.
Dyke. I trust the little girl may yet be found and restored to her
family--to--to her brother! I trust she may yet be found, sir!" And he
glared at Mr. Dyke aggressively.

"I trust you may live to see it, Mr. MacGentle, sir!" said the
confidential clerk, shifting his ground in a truly masterly manner;
and before the President could recover, he had bowed and gone out. Ten
minutes afterwards MacGentle opened the door, and lo! Dyke himself on
the threshold.

"Mr. Dyke!"

"Mr. MacGentle!" in the same breath.

"I--Mr. Dyke, let me apologize for my asperity,--for my rudeness,"
says MacGentle, stepping forward and holding out his thin white hand,
his eyebrows more raised than ever, the corners of his mouth more
depressed. "I am sincerely sorry that--that--"

"O sir!" cries the square clerk, grasping the thin hand in both his
square palms; "O sir! O sir! No, no!--no, no! I was just coming to beg
you--My fault,--my fault, Mr. MacGentle, sir! No, no!"

Thus incoherently ended the quarrel between these two old friends, the
dispute being left undecided. But the important point was established
that Balder Helwyse was insured a practice in Boston, in case his
uncle Glyphic's fortune failed to enrich him.

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