University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.
IN WHICH MR. BELCHER VISITS NEW YORK, AND BECOMEC THE
PROPRIETOR OF “PALGRAVE'S FOLLY.”

The shadow of a mystery hung over Sevenoaks for many
months. Handbills advertising the fugitives were posted in
all directions throughout the country, but nothing came of
them but rumors. The newspapers, far and near, told the
story, but it resulted in nothing save such an airing of the
Sevenoaks poor-house, and the county establishment connected
with the same, that Tom Buffum, who had lived for
several years on the border-land of apoplexy, passed suddenly
over, and went so far that he never returned to meet the official
inquiry into his administration. The Augean stables
were cleansed by the Hercules of public opinion; and with
the satisfied conscience and restored self-complacency procured
by this act, the people at last settled down upon the
conviction that Benedict and his boy had shared the fate of
old Tilden—that they had lost themselves in the distant
forest, and met their death alike beyond help and discovery.

Mr. Belcher found himself without influence in the adjustment
of the new administration. Sevenoaks turned the cold
shoulder to him. Nobody went to him with the reports that
connected him with the flight and fate of the crazed inventor,
yet he knew, through instincts which men of his nature often
possess in a remarkable degree, that he was deeply blamed for
the causes of Benedict's misfortunes. It has already been
hinted that at first he was suspected of knowing guiltily more
about the disappearance of the fugitives than he would be
willing to tell, but there were only a few minds in which the
suspicion was long permitted to linger. When the first excitement

passed away and men began to think, it was impossible
for them to imagine motives sufficiently powerful to induce
the rich proprietor to pursue a lunatic pauper to his
death.

Mr. Belcher never had encouraged the neighborly approaches
which, in an emergency like this, might have given
him comfort and companionship. Recognizing no equals in
Sevenoaks—measuring his own social position by the depth
of his purse and the reach of his power—he had been in
the habit of dispensing his society as largess to the humble
villagers. To recognize a man upon the street, and speak to
him in a familiar way, was to him like the opening of his
purse and throwing the surprise of a dollar into a beggar's
hat. His courtesies were charities; his politeness was a
boon; he tossed his jokes into a crowd of dirty employes as
he would toss a handful of silver coin. Up to this time
he had been sufficient unto himself. By money, by petty
revenges, by personal assumption, he had managed to retain
his throne for a long decade; and when he found his power
partly ignored and partly defied, and learned that his personal
courtesies were not accepted at their old value, he not only
began to feel lonesome, but he grew angry. He held hot
discussions with his image in the mirror night after night, in
his lonely library, where a certain measure which had once
seemed a distant possibility took shape more and more as a
purpose. In some way he would revenge himself upon the
people of the town. Even at a personal sacrifice, he would
pay them off for their slight upon him; and he knew there
was no way in which he could so effectually do this as by
leaving them. He had dreamed many times, as he rapidly
accumulated his wealth, of arriving at a point where he could
treat his splendid home as a summer resort, and take up his
residence in the great city among those of his own kind. He
had an uneasy desire for the splendors of city life, yet his interests
had always held him to Sevenoaks, and he had contented
himself there simply because he had his own way, and

was accounted “the principal citizen.” His village splendors
were without competition. His will was law. His self-complacency,
fed and flourishing in his country home, had
taken the place of society; but this had ceased to be all-sufficient,
even before the change occurred in the atmosphere
around him.

It was six months after the reader's first introduction to
him that, showily dressed as he always was, he took his place
before his mirror for a conversation with the striking-looking
person whom he saw reflected there.

“Robert Belcher, Esquire,” said he, “are you played out?
Who says played out? Did you address that question to me,
sir? Am I the subject of that insulting remark? Do you
dare to beard the lion in his den? Withdraw the dagger that
you have aimed at my breast, or I will not hold myself responsible
for the consequences. Played out, with a million
dollars in your pocket? Played out, with wealth pouring in
in mighty waves? Whose name is Norval still? Whose are
these Grampian Hills? In yonder silent heavens the stars
still shine, printing on boundless space the words of golden
promise. Will you leave Sevenoaks? Will you go to yonder
metropolis, and there reap, in honor and pleasure, the rewards
of your enterprise? Will you leave Sevenoaks howling
in pain? Will you leave these scurvy ministers to whine for
their salaries and whine to empty air? Ye fresh fields and
pastures new, I yield, I go, I reside! I spurn the dust of
Sevenoaks from my feet. I hail the glories of the distant
mart. I make my bow to you, sir. You ask my pardon? It
is well! Go!”

The next morning, after a long examination of his affairs,
in conference with his confidential agent, and the announcement
to Mrs. Belcher that he was about to start for New York
on business, Phipps took him and his trunk on a drive of
twenty miles, to the northern terminus of a railroad line
which, with his connections, would bear him to the city of his
hopes.

It is astonishing how much room a richly dressed snob can
occupy in a railway car without receiving a request to occupy
less, or endangering the welfare of his arrogant eyes. Mr.
Belcher occupied always two seats, and usually four. It was
pitiful to see feeble women look at his abounding supply, then
look at him, and then pass on. It was pitiful to see humbly
dressed men do the same. It was pitiful to see gentlemen put
themselves to inconvenience rather than dispute with him his
right to all the space he could cover with his luggage and his
feet. Mr. Belcher watched all these exhibitions with supreme
satisfaction. They were a tribute to his commanding personal
appearance. Even the conductors recognized the manner of
man with whom they had to deal, and shunned him. He not
only got the worth of his money in his ride, but the worth of
the money of several other people.

Arriving at New York, he went directly to the Astor, then
the leading hotel of the city. The clerk not only knew the
kind of man who stood before him recording his name, but he
knew him; and while he assigned to his betters, men and
women, rooms at the top of the house, Mr. Belcher secured,
without difficulty, a parlor and bedroom on the second floor.
The arrogant snob was not only at a premium on the railway
train, but at the hotel. When he swaggered into the dining-room,
the head waiter took his measure instinctively, and
placed him as a figure-head at the top of the hall, where he
easily won to himself the most careful and obsequious service,
the choicest viands, and a large degree of quiet observation
from the curious guests. In the office, waiters ran for him,
hackmen took off their hats to him, his cards were delivered
with great promptitude, and even the courtly principal deigned
to inquire whether he found everything to his mind. In
short, Mr. Belcher seemed to find that his name was as distinctly
“Norval” in New York as in Sevenoaks, and that his
“Grampian Hills” were movable eminences that stood
around and smiled upon him wherever he went.

Retiring to his room to enjoy in quiet his morning cigar

and to look over the papers, his eye was attracted, among the
“personals,” to an item which read as follows:

“Col. Robert Belcher, the rich and well-known manufacturer
of Sevenoaks, and the maker of the celebrated Belcher
rifle, has arrived in town, and occupies a suite of apartments
at the Astor.”

His title, he was aware, had been manufactured, in order
to give the highest significance to the item, by the enterprising
reporter, but it pleased him. The reporter, associating his
name with fire-arms, had chosen a military title, in accordance
with the custom which makes “commodores” of enterprising
landsmen who build and manage lines of marine transportation
and travel, and “bosses” of men who control election
gangs, employed to dig the dirty channels to political
success.

He read it again and again, and smoked, and walked to his
glass, and coddled himself with complacent fancies. He felt
that all doors opened themselves widely to the man who had
money, and the skill to carry it in his own magnificent way.
In the midst of pleasant thoughts, there came a rap at the
door, and he received from the waiter's little salver the card
of his factor, “Mr. Benjamin Talbot.” Mr. Talbot had read
the “personal” which had so attracted and delighted himself,
and had made haste to pay his respects to the principal
from whose productions he was coining a fortune.

Mr. Talbot was the man of all others whom Mr. Belcher
desired to see; so, with a glance at the card, he told the waiter
promptly to show the gentleman up.

No man in the world understood Mr. Belcher better than
the quick-witted and obsequious factor. He had been in the
habit, during the ten years in which he had handled Mr.
Belcher's goods, of devoting his whole time to the proprietor
while that person was on his stated visits to the city. He
took him to his club to dine; he introduced him to congenial
spirits; he went to the theater with him; he went with him
to grosser resorts, which do not need to be named in these

pages; he drove with him to the races; he took him to lunch
at suburban hotels, frequented by fast men who drove fast
horses; he ministered to every coarse taste and vulgar desire
possessed by the man whose nature and graceless caprices he
so carefully studied. He did all this at his own expense, and
at the same time he kept his principal out of the clutches of
gamblers and sharpers. It was for his interest to be of actual
use to the man whose desires he aimed to gratify, and so to
guard and shadow him that no deep harm would come to him.
It was for his interest to keep Mr. Belcher to himself, while
he gave him the gratifications that a coarse man living in the
country so naturally seeks among the opportunities and excitements
of the city.

There was one thing, however, that Mr. Talbot had never
done. He had never taken Mr. Belcher to his home. Mrs.
Talbot did not wish to see him, and Mr. Talbot did not wish
to have her see him. He knew that Mr. Belcher, after his
business was completed, wanted something besides a quiet
dinner with women and children. His leanings were not
toward virtue, but toward safe and half-reputable vice; and
exactly what he wanted consistent with his safety as a business
man, Mr. Talbot wished to give him. To nurse his good-will,
to make himself useful, and, as far as possible, essential
to the proprietor, and to keep him sound and make him last,
was Mr. Talbot's study and his most determined ambition.

Mr. Belcher was seated in a huge arm chair, with his back
to the door and his feet in another chair, when the second rap
came, and Mr. Talbot, with a radiant smile, entered.

“Well, Toll, my boy,” said the proprietor, keeping his
seat without turning, and extending his left hand. “How
are you? Glad to see you. Come round to pay your respects
to the Colonel, eh? How's business, and how's your
folks?”

Mr. Talbot was accustomed to this style of greeting from
his principal, and, responding heartily to it and the inquiries
accompanying it, he took a seat. With hat and cane in hand

he sat on his little chair, showing his handsome teeth, twirling
his light mustache, and looking at the proprietor with his
keen gray eyes, his whole atitude and physiognomy expressing
the words as plainly as if he had spoken them: “I'm
your man; now, what are you up to?”

“Toll,” said Mr. Belcher deliberately, “I'm going to surprise
you.”

“You usually do,” responded the factor, laughing.

“I vow, I guess that's true! You fellows, without any
blood, are apt to get waked up when the old boys come in
from the country. Toll, lock the door.”

Mr. Talbot locked the door and resumed his seat.

“Sevenoaks be hanged!” said Mr. Belcher.

“Certainly.”

“It's a one-horse town.”

“Certainly. Still, I have been under the impression that
you owned the horse.”

“Yes, I know, but the horse is played out.”

“Hasn't he been a pretty good horse, and earned you all
he cost you?”

“Well, I'm tired with living where there is so much infernal
babble, and meddling with other people's business. If I
sneeze, the people think there's been an earthquake; and
when I whistle, they call it a hurricane.”

“But you're the king of the roost,” said Talbot.

“Yes; but a man gets tired being king of the roost, and
longs for some rooster to fight.'

Mr. Talbot saw the point toward which Mr. Belcher was
drifting, and prepared himself for it. He had measured his
chances for losing his business, and when, at last, his principal
came out with the frank statement, that he had made up
his mind to come to New York to live, he was all ready with
his overjoyed “No!” and with his smooth little hand to bestow
upon Mr. Belcher's heavy fist the expression of his gladness
and his congratulations.

“Good thing, isn't it, Toll?”

“Excellent!”

“And you'll stand by me, Toll?”

“Of course I will; but we can't do just the old things, you
know. We must be highly respectable citizens, and keep
ourselves straight.”

“Don't you undertake to teach your grandmother how to
suck eggs,” responded the proprietor with a huge laugh, in
which the factor joined. Then he added, thoughtfully: “I
haven't said a word to the woman about it, and she may make
a fuss, but she knows me pretty well; and there'll be the biggest
kind of a row in the town; but the fact is, Toll, I'm at
the end of my rope there. I'm making money hand over
hand, and I've nothing to show for it. I've spent about
everything I can up there, and nobody sees it. I might just
as well be buried; and if a fellow can't show what he gets,
what's the use of having it? I haven't but one life to live,
and I'm going to spread, and I'm going to do it right here in
New York; and if I don't make some of your nabobs open
their eyes, my name isn't Robert Belcher.”

Mr. Belcher had exposed motives in this little speech that
he had not even alluded to in his addresses to his image in the
mirror. Talbot saw that something had gone wrong in the
town, that he was playing off a bit of revenge, and, above all,
that the vulgar desire for display was more prominent among
Mr. Belcher's motives for removal than that person suspected.

“I have a few affairs to attend to,” said Mr. Talbot, rising,
“but after twelve o'clock I will be at your service while you
remain in the city. We shall have no difficulty in finding a
house to suit you, I am sure, and you can get everything done
in the matter of furniture at the shortest notice. I will hunt
houses with you for a week, if you wish.”

“Well, by-by, Toll,” said Mr. Belcher, giving him his left
hand again. “I'll be 'round at twelve.”

Mr. Talbot went out, but instead of going to his office,
went straight home, and surprised Mrs. Talbot by his sudden
reappearance.

“What on earth!”—said she, looking up from a bit of
embroidery on which she was dawdling away her morning.

“Kate, who do you suppose is coming to New York to live?”

“The Great Mogul.”

“Yes, the Great Mogul—otherwise, Colonel Robert Belcher.”

“Heaven help us!” exclaimed the lady.

“Well, and what's to be done?”

“Oh, my! my! my! my!” exclaimed Mrs. Talbot, her
possessive pronoun stumbling and fainting away without
reaching its object. “Must we have that bear in the house?
Does it pay?”

“Yes, Kate, it pays,” said Mr. Talbot.

“Well, I suppose that settles it.”

The factor and his wife were very quick to comprehend the
truth that a principal out of town, and away from his wife
and family, was a very different person to deal with from one
in the town and in the occupation of a grand establishment,
with his dependents. They saw that they must make themselves
essential to him in the establishment of his social position,
and that they must introduce him and his wife to their
friends. Moreover, they had heard good reports of Mrs. Belcher,
and had the impression that she would be either an inoffensive
or a valuable acquisition to their circle of friends.

There was nothing to do, therefore, but to make a dinner-party
in Mr. Belcher's honor. The guests were carefully
selected, and Mrs. Talbot laid aside her embroidery and wrote
her invitations, while Mr. Talbot made his next errand at the
office of the leading real estate broker, with whom he concluded
a private arrangement to share in the commission of
any sale that might be made to the customer whom he proposed
to bring to him in the course of the day. Half an-hour
before twelve, he was in his own office, and in the thirty
minutes that lay between his arrival and the visit of the proprietor,
he had arranged his affairs for any absence that would
be necessary.

When Mr. Belcher came in, looking from side to side, with
the air of a man who owned all he saw, even the clerks, who
respectfully bowed to him as he passed, he found Mr. Talbot
waiting; also, a bunch of the costliest cigars.

“I remembered your weakness, you see,” said Talbot.

“Toll, you're a jewel,” said Mr. Belcher, drawing out one
of the fragrant rolls and lighting it.

“Now, before we go a step,” said Talbot, “you must agree
to come to my house to-morrow night to dinner, and meet
some of my friends. When you come to New York, you'll
want to know somebody.”

“Toll, I tell you you're a jewel.”

“And you'll come?”

“Well, you know I'm not rigged exactly for that sort of
thing, and, faith, I'm not up to it, but I suppose all a man
has to do is to put on a stiff upper lip, and take it as it comes.”

“I'll risk you anywhere.”

“All right! I'll be there.”

“Six o'clock, sharp;—and now let's go and find a broker.
I know the best one in the city, and I'll show you the inside
of more fine houses before night than you have ever seen.”

Talbot took the proprietor's arm and led him to a carriage
in waiting. Then he took him to Pine street, and introduced
him, in the most deferential manner, to the broker who held
half of New York at his disposal, and knew the city as he
knew his alphabet.

The broker took the pair of house-hunters to a private room,
and unfolded a map of the city before them. On this he
traced, with a well-kept finger-nail, a series of lines,—like
those fanciful isothermal definitions that embrace the regions
of perennial summer on the range of the Northern Pacific
Railroad,—within which social respectability made its home.
Within certain avenues and certain streets, he explained that
it was a respectable thing to live. Outside of these arbitrary
boundaries, nobody who made any pretense to respectability
should buy a house. The remainder of the city was for the

vulgar—craftsmen, petty shopkeepers, salaried men, and the
shabby-genteel. He insisted that a wealthy man, making an
entrance upon New York life, should be careful to locate himself
somewhere upon the charmed territory which he defined.
He felt in duty bound to say this to Mr. Belcher, as he was a
stranger; and Mr. Belcher was, of course, grateful for the information.

Then he armed Mr. Talbot, as Mr. Belcher's city friend
and helper, with a bundle of permits, with which they set off
upon their quest.

They visited a dozen houses in the course of the afternoon,
carefully chosen in their succession by Mr. Talbot, who was
as sure of Mr. Belcher's tastes as he was of his own. One
street was too quiet, one was too dark; one house was too
small, and one was too tame; one house had no stable, another
had too small a stable. At last, they came out upon
Fifth avenue, and drove up to a double front, with a stable almost
as ample and as richly appointed as the house itself. It
had been built, and occupied for a year or two, by an exploded
millionaire, and was an elephant upon the hands of
his creditors. Robert Belcher was happy at once. The marvelous
mirrors, the plate glass, the gilded cornices, the grand
staircase, the glittering chandeliers, the evidences of lavish
expenditure in every fixture, and in all the finish, excited him
like wine.

“Now you talk!” said he to the smiling factor; and as he
went to the window, and saw the life of the street, rolling by
in costly carriages, or sweeping the sidewalks with shining
silks and mellow velvets, he felt that he was at home. Here
he could see and be seen. Here his splendors could be advertised.
Here he could find an expression for his wealth, by
the side of which his establishment at Sevenoaks seemed too
mean to be thought of without humiliation and disgust. Here
was a house that gratified his sensuous nature through and
through, and appealed irresistibly to his egregious vanity.
He did not know that the grand and gaudy establishment bore

the name of “Palgrave's Folly,” and, probably, it would
have made no difference with him if he had. It suited him,
and would, in his hands, become Belcher's Glory.

The sum demanded for the place, though very large, did
not cover its original cost, and in this fact Mr. Belcher took
great comfort. To enjoy fifty thousand dollars, which somebody
else had made, was a charming consideration with him,
and one that did much to reconcile him to an expenditure far
beyond his original purpose.

When he had finished his examination of the house, he returned
to his hotel, as business hours were past, and he could
make no further headway that day in his negotiations. The
more he thought of the house, the more uneasy he became.
Somebody might have seen him looking at it, and so reached
the broker first, and snatched it from his grasp. He did not
know that it had been in the market for two years, waiting
for just such a man as himself.

Talbot was fully aware of the state of Mr. Belcher's mind,
and knew that if he did not reach him early the next morning,
the proprietor would arrive at the broker's before him. Accordingly,
when Mr. Belcher finished his breakfast that morning,
he found his factor waiting for him, with the information
that the broker would not be in his office for an hour and a-half,
and that there was time to look further, if further search
were desirable. He hoped that Mr. Belcher would not be in
a hurry, or take any step that he would ultimately regret.
Mr. Belcher assured him that he knew what he wanted when
he saw it, and had no fears about the matter, except that
somebody might anticipate him.

“You have determined, then, to buy the house at the
price?” said Talbot.

“Yes; I shall just shut my eyes and swallow the whole
thing.”

“Would you like to get it cheaper?”

“Of course!”

“Then, perhaps you had better leave the talking to me,”

said Talbot. “These fellows all have a price that they ask,
and a smaller one that they will take.”

“That's one of the tricks, eh?”

“Yes.”

“Then go ahead.”

They had a long talk about business, and then Talbot went
out, and, after an extended interview with the broker, sent a
messenger for Mr. Belcher. When that gentleman came in,
he found that Talbot had bought the house for ten thousand
dollars less than the price originally demanded. Mr. Belcher
deposited a handsome sum as a guaranty of his good faith, and
ordered the papers to be made out at once.

After their return to the hotel, Mr. Talbot sat down to a
table, and went through a long calculation.

“It will cost you, Mr. Belcher,” said the factor, deliberately,
“at least twenty-five thousand dollars to furnish that
house satisfactorily.”

Mr. Belcher gave a long whistle.

“At least twenty-five thousand dollars, and I doubt whether
you get off for less than thirty thousand.”

“Well, I'm in for it, and I'm going through,” said Mr.
Belcher.

“Very well,” responded Talbot, “now let's go to the
best furnisher we can find. I happen to know the man who is at
the top of the style, and I suppose the best thing—as you and
I don't know much about the matter—is to let him have his
own way, and hold him responsible for the results.”

“All right,” said Belcher; “show me the man.”

They found the arbiter of style in his counting-room. Mr.
Talbot approached him first, and held a long private conversation
with him. Mr. Belcher, in his self-complacency,
waited, fancying that Talbot was representing his own importance
and the desirableness of so rare a customer, and endeavoring
to secure reasonable prices on a large bill. In reality,
he was arranging to get a commission out of the job for
himself.

If it be objected to Mr. Talbot's mode of giving assistance
to his country friends, that it savored of mercenariness,
amounting to villainy, it is to be said, on his behalf, that he
was simply practicing the morals that Mr. Belcher had taught
him. Mr. Belcher had not failed to debauch or debase the
moral standard of every man over whom he had any direct
influence. If Talbot had practiced his little game upon
any other man, Mr. Belcher would have patted his shoulder
and told him he was a “jewel.” So much of Mr. Belcher's
wealth had been won by sharp and more than doubtful practices,
that that wealth itself stood before the world as a premium
on rascality, and thus became, far and wide, a demoralizing
influence upon the feverishly ambitious and the young.
Besides, Mr. Talbot quieted what little conscience he had in
the matter by the consideration that his commissions were
drawn, not from Mr. Belcher, but from the profits which
others would make out of him, and the further consideration
that it was no more than right for him to get the money back
that he had spent, and was spending, for his principal's
benefit.

Mr. Belcher was introduced, and the arbiter of style conversed
learnedly of Tuscan, Pompeiian, Elizabethan, Louis
Quatorze, buhl, marqueterie, &c., &c., till the head of the
proprietor, to whom all these words were strangers, and all
his talk Greek, was thrown into a hopeless muddle.

Mr. Belcher listened to him as long as he could do so with
patience, and then brought him to a conclusion by a slap upon
his knee.

“Come, now!” said he, “you understand your business,
and I understand mine. If you were to take up guns and
gutta-percha, I could probably talk your head off, but I don't
know anything about these things. What I want is something
right. Do the whole thing up brown. Do you understand
that?”

The arbiter of style smiled pityingly, and admitted that he
comprehended his customer.

It was at last arranged that the latter should make a study
of the house, and furnish it according to his best ability, within
a specified sum of expenditure and a specified period
of time; and then the proprietor took his leave.

Mr. Belcher had accomplished a large amount of business
within two days, but he had worked according to his habit.
The dinner party remained, and this was the most difficult
business that he had ever undertaken, yet he had a strong desire
to see how it was done. He learned quickly what he
undertook, and he had already “discounted,” to use his own
word, a certain amount of mortification connected with the
affair.