University of South Carolina Libraries
JOHN F PROMft Rv F.MF.RSf AUTHOR of |THE MISSISSIPPI ILLUSTRATIONS by Ra COPYRIGHT 1912 BY EMERSO! iiYNOPSIS. CHAPTER I-John Rawn It born ta Texas. Early In life he shows signs of masterfulness and Inordinate selfishness. CHAPTER II?He marries Laura Johnson. He is a clerk In a St. Louis railway office when his daughter Grace is born. Tears later he hears Grace's loyef- a young engineer named cnanes riai*?7r peak of a scheme to utilize the lost current of electricity. With his usual un crupulousness he appropriates the Idea la his own and induces Halsey to perfect An experimental machine. He forms a company, with himself as president, at a alary of |100,000 a year, and Halsey as uperintendent of the work* at a salary f 15,000. CHAPTER >21?Rawn takes cht**ge of ' the office In Chicago. Virginia Delaware, I A beautiful, capable and ambitious young woman. Is assigned as his stenographer, j fihe assists in picking the furniture and | decoration for the princely mansion j Rawn has erected. Mrs. Rawn feels out J of place In the new surroundings. r*TT A -PTTTT? W?TTbIcov mpa to New York with Rawn and Miss Delaware to explain delays in perfecting the new motor to impatient directors. He gets a message that a deformed daughter has been bora to his wife, Grace Rawn. He returns to Chicago. CTTA;yiER V? Rawn Bargains with M!ss Delaware to wear his Jewelry and appear In public with him, as * means to Kelp 1dm in a business way. CHAPTER VT-Rawn la fortunate In narket speculations, piles up wealth and attains prominence. CHAPTER Vn?He frets because his fcrife does not rise with him in a sociaj way. He gives her a million dollars to leave him. *TER IX?Grace moves to Graynail, and Halsey continues to live in the cottage near the works. CHAPTER X? Halsey's machine proves fc success, but be keeps the fact a se CHAPTE A XI?Vtrgfnla Delaware beeome? more ?.na more lndispensible to JRawn. He takes her to New York on a business trip. Idle talk prompts him to offer her marriage. CHAPTER XII?They are married. Through Virginia's tact and ability they Bake a place for themselves In the sociaJ World. CHAPTER xm?Halsey threatens to get a divorce because his wife refuses to return to him. He tells Rawn that he has broken up all the machines after proving the success of the Invention. Rawn, in a great rage, threatens to kill him. CHAPTER XIV?Halsey declares he will never build another machine foi w ~ ' "*ri Dorrn iiawn ana siaps nis iJice. vugima *? intercepts Halsey as he ii leaving the house and, with arms about his neck, implores him to reconsider, because his decision will ruin them all. CHAPTER XV?Halsey tells Virginia that he has abandoned his invention because It would put a great power in the hands of a few to the detriment of the many. * "You see?I couldn't tell our directorate," he went on; "but there was always something lacking which I couldn't handle myself. We need him, and we've got to have him! You can get him, I know you can. Yoh can do onrthintr vnn like. You're wonder C?u; wuiUQ fill!" She sat and looked at him, her lips ?till parted in the same enigmatic j smile which he did not like to see, but i she made no answer. i "What's wrong with him?" he went; on immediately. "What does he say is the trouble, anyway? And is it the m-i J mv w JM f "He Will Wait a Little While." | truth that h-.'s 01 overhead current?" ! She nodded. ' Cf course, I kno'. j something about it from my work in j the office. Yes, he told me that he | had done what you have all been trying to do so long. He said he came over under power from the overhead? j just as he told you." "He may be lying, for all we know.! v>m no n't InnV nr a rar and tell where i Its charge came from. Electricity is j electricity, to all intents and purposes. I What 1 want to know is, what he's got against us, anyhow, Jennie?" "Well, for one thing, he seemed troubled because Grace would not go back with him. He seemed to think that you and the lifo you could give her had been the reason for her abandoning him." "Why, w^at. nons<-n-fN' abandoned him! And 1 'vly go?- r over here because I wr:i*'d her my self?before- -wen,. Derore we were married. Who was to take care ol me, I'd like to know? And you say at; somplcins of thut!" "T at v a - :rv r * - : "But Orac# would go back? She'6 IAWN ir\TT r-TT!7rM JiLn 1 Ul )N HOUGH BUBBLE; 54-40 OR FIGHT iy Walters *4?HOUGH ' J ? 11 nlnAA TTAtl j noil? IOU wen piCdBCU UUW, D1UVU JVU and I have taken charge here. She'd go back to Charley tomorrow if he asked her?why, I'd make him take care of her, of course. The trouble with him is, he values his own personal affairs too much. That's no way to b*>gin in the business world. A man has to lend everything to the one pur| pose of success. Look at me, for inofonoa " W WHUVVl She did look at him, calmly, coldly, without the tremor of an eyelid, without raising her hand to touch him as i he stood close by, without indeed making any verbal answer. A slight shudder passed over her, visible in the twitch of her shoulders. "It's getting cooler!" he exclaimed. "I'll fetch a wrap for you." And so hastened away, obsequious, uxorious, as he always was with her. "But Charley never would take any counsel from anybody," resumed ne i presently. "He's always been tract-' able enough, that's true; never raised much of a disturbance until tonight?I don't see why he cut up so ugiy now. He's not crazy over Grace, and if the truth be told, Grace isn't the sort of girl that a man would get crazy over. You're that sort." "Perhaps not," she smiled faintly. "Just the same, Grace's attitude may have started him to thinking. When he began thinking he seemed to conclude that all the world was wrong." "And he's starting in to set it right! He's going in for the uplift stunt, eh? That's tho wav with a lot of these re formers! They want to set the world right according to their own ideas. They don't pay any attention to the men who keep them from starving. I made that boy?what he's got he owes to me." "Indeed! How singular! He says that it's Just the other way about; that what you have you took from mm! Jtie says you want w iaa.e more?more than your share?from things that belong to everybody." "What's that! What's that! Well, now, of all the insane idiocy I ever heard! Good God, what next! Him, Charles Halsey, the man I brought up A'ith me! Jennie, I never heard the like of that in all my time." "But if that's the way he feels, now's not the time to argue that with him!" "But, good God, the effrontery?" "All the world is full of effrontery, Mr. Rawn," she said?continuing to j nHdross him formally, as she alwavs ~ ? -I did. . "It's buy and sell. Everything j we get we pay for in one way or j another. Even if we took power out I of the air by our oterhead motors, we'd pay for that, one way of another ?nothing comes from nothing?we pay, we pay all the time, Mr. Rawn!" "You don't need to go into theories and generalizations," said he testily. "Wo'vo bad PTious-h of that from ilim. We are both practical. You simply get that man and bring him-back into the fold, that's all! Do your share." "My share? It's easy, isn't it?" She smiled at him again annoyingly. "But you can do it" "Yes, I can do it. But I can't evade the truth I just told you. I'd have to pay. You'd have to pay." "We're beggars, and can't choose," said John Rawn savagely. "Besides, there's no harm done?I'm not asking ' you to do anything improper, anything to compromise yourself?but get him, I that's all! And fvhen we've got him in j hand?when 1 Know wnat i want 10 know?I'll wring him dry and throw him on the scrap heap. That's what I'll do with him!" j ''Yes, I think you would," she said. "It's the only right thing to do," j Rawn fumed. "He'll get what's coming to him. He's been throwing down his one best friend." "Are there any best friends in business, Mr. Rawn?" she asked. "Of course there are. Haven't I been a friend to him; haven't I got a lot of friends of my own?" "What would they do for you tomor-: row, Mr. Rawn?" "Well, that's a different matter; they might take care of themselves?I would take care of myself. But this fool here that I'm asking you to handle isn't taking care of himself or anyone else. He's crazy, that's all about him! Did he hand you out any of this talk about the rights of man? I more than half suspect him of sympathizing with these labor unions. He's a Socialist at heart, that's what he is'" i 1S- ) She nodded her head a little, j "Names, don't make much difference in such mattera." isn't it a runny thing, he rejoined, turning to her in his walk, "that the very men who have failed, the very ones who most need help themselves, are the ones who are out to help everybody else! The blind always want to lead the blind! These labor unions depend on us for their daily bread and butter, yet they want to fight us all the time. There's no trust in this country so big as the labor trust, and there's no ingratitude in the *1- ^ tv, ]ofccrjng man's, r v - ~- < uic & . iiiy This y.iiy I month I was going to put fifty thousand dollars more into my co-operative | farm in the south, a thing I have been working out for the benefit of my laboring people. I'm going to do more than old Carnegie has done! You and j I ought to have set up some kind of prizps, medals?start some sort of hero competition. Helping colleges is old, and so are libraries old. T don't place myself ary station back of Rockefeller himself. The Rockefeller Foundatian wfs a great idea. Just wait! I'll raise him out of the game! When I get all my plans made, they'll speak of John Rawn when they mention philanthropy! "And just to think, Jennie,H he went nn PxHtprflv "thnt nil our>>i hit* nlona for the good of humanity, should come to nothing! To be held up and handicapped by the folly of a man who has never been able to do anything for himself or anyone else! It makes me sick to think of It. He claims to be a friend of the laboring people, and here he's tying the hands of the greatest friend of the laboring men in this town today?myself, John Rawn, standing here! Why, if I'd hand this country the John Rawn Foundation for industrial assistance, all thought out, all financed, all ready to go to work tomorrow, that crazy fool there, with his Socialist ideas, would block it all. He's going to block it all. "Now, it's up to you. You're the only one that can keep him from doing that very thing. Don't you see, it isn't just you and me he's ruining. It isn't himself he's ruining. He's going to hurt the whole country. Jennie, there's considerable responsibility on you to-night. Where he is wrong is in thinking that the weak can help the weak. It's the other way about? it's the strong that can help?Power! ?that's what counts! It's for you to show him that Jennie, girl?it's not on mim'h mvcolf 'R'Jif fViint r\f your country." "Yes," she nodded, "that's precisely It!" "But he didn't affect you In the least, Jennie?he didn't get you going with that kind of foolishness." "I never heard any one talk just as he did, before," said she slowly. "You see, I hadn't thought of these things myself, for I'm only a woman. He said that all this power, taken from the hills and the forests and the air and the rivers, belongs to everybody? to all the world? "But he didn't impress you with that nonsense, Jennie?" "He said things?I told him that I'd never thought of lifa just that way. And I haven't, Mr. Rawn. I told him, as I admit to you, that I hadn't thought of anybody much but myself?I just tried to climb. I think all women do." "It's right they should, it's the only way. Selfishness is the one great cause of the world's progress, my dear." "Well, I told him that his way of thinking was so new to me, that I needed time to think it over." "But you didn't believe a word he said?you never would!" "Mr. Rawn," said she, looking him full in the face, "we've both of us 'climbed pretty fast. I always put my family out of memory all I could. But somehow I seem to recollect that my father used to talk of things a good TT.1 J T +/.X deal as ivir. na.xst:y uuca. i ucgm iu realize what I told you a while ago? no matter how or where we climb, we pay for what we get, sometime, somewhere, somehow! "But listen," she leaned toward him with some sudden access of emotion. "I can do this much! I'll agree to bring in Charley Halsey, bound hand and foot! You can throw him and me, too, on the scrap heap when the time comes! It's a game. I'll play It. I'll take my chance." She half rose, thrilling, vibrant. "I knew you would, Jennie." "Yes, but you'll have to pay." "Have I ever said I wouldn't? Didn't I just get done telling him I'd make him rich the minute he said the word?" "It doesn't seem to be money he wants. I?don't?believe?that's what the pay would have to be." "What do you mean? You're getting too deep for me now. I'm only a plain man, my girl!" She smiled at him, still enigmatic, still cool and calm, still almost insolent, as she often was with him. "He's been talking all sorts of folly about getting things i; g grnvi tation in tune v/r ; .ui sorts o: abstractions. \\ ei you see. i.' I got in tune with I >ons, I might be able 10 influence Rawn grew cold an hr.rd "There's i one thing we car/1 <. -ennie. saic i he "We can't sic.e -villi any of his * TT 1"* /N TTT/1 *-i f n t A | SOCiailStlC t&lK. VV lid. I lie vvanto tu j do is to give to the people of this | country for nothing what this Internaj tional Power Company is planning to ! sell them for ever. What we want is monopoly! I've been gambling everyj thing I've got on the certainty of that | monopoly. I'm in soak, in hock, up i to my eyes on the market, this min! ute. I'm margined to the full extent I of my credit. The biggest men of ; America are back of me. I'll be rich | if this tfcing goes through?one of the ! richest men in America. But I'd alI most rather lose it all than to see you 1 side in with him, or listen for five min1 utes to his rotten talk about the ! 'rights of man.' There are no rights 1 of man except what each man can take ! for himself! As for him, I'd kill hi-m. j cr get him killed, if I knew first how ve got that current through the rc' mo that anrl T'll ]pf t'lf* '" TlVCiO. VIHC uiu - ? rights of man wait a while. I'll show ! them a thing or two! I ! I j (TO BE CONTINUED). S ll y/ Ask foi It tells you how y< phone line with th same high-class loc now enjoyed by m If you haven't tell you how to ge You do not obligat i Address nearest I Farmers SOUTHERN BEI AND TELEGRl 163 South Pryo '-- = The Newb I Capital Stoc! ETA TPD^ JL. VLll I fpH 4 Copyright 1 VERY 1 1 | "trie oa step toward s man has evei account. A increased pre liability and: 1 j greatest ettoi , one. I "The Bank Tha I |Four Per Cent It | | JAS. McINTOSH, President ' ' JWy|,T^T?H I ^ 7?oTT? Kffeym cH^lns-' "a. *t1to> Jdoirn a cellar door, mother trill say, j that in : irmer N It Is F It Today-A Posta du may connect yc ie Rell svstem. and al and long distam ore than 5,000,000 a Telephone this 1 t service at very sr :e yourself by sendi Jell Telephone Manager ' Line Department IX TELEPHONE LPH COMPANY r St, Atlanta, Ga. erry Savings Ba c, - $50,000 W HAT T At I JUULLAll fou put i in rhe bAnb trengthef HE WAU ETWEENYO n/FPQTTV 909, by C S Zimmesua Co*~>Xo*0? dollar you put ^1' tviA^we onntli HA. uica^io uiiv/^&i iuccess. No success r been without a ba bank account me< istiere and a sense of security, well worth i ft in order to acqu it Always Has The Mon iterest Paid en Savings Depos 1 r UADWAAn / J. L* nui\nuui/, * i. EfllHBBBBHBHiHIBBi i in Hm* mrce nine.* Ke** mind "when trowing the troK and wag eeds ?eg i ree - 1 Will Do J >ur Tele- ? I get the . 1 :e service people. . < book will nail cost. ing for it. ^ , or i > anMMWUm , nk .00 ? L " r L I to . 1 4 ' u I # i 1 in j ! ^ er fill , I nk | | % re- ( I the i lire | ey i !u i lid ]astier ??If* kz n-nd rIwsth look for c*rs ons.