A Cool Million (6 page)

ASA GOLDSTEIN, LTD. Colonial
Exteriors and Interiors

and
in the
window of which his old home actually stood.

At first the poor boy could not
believe his eyes, but, yes, there it was exactly as in Vermont. One of the
things that struck him was the seediness of the old house. When he and his
mother had lived in it, they had kept it in a much better state of repair.

Our hero stood gazing at the exhibit
for so long that he attracted the attention of one of the clerks. This suave
individual came out to the street and addressed
Lem
.

“You admire the architecture of New
England?” he said, feeling our hero out.

“No; it’s that particular house that
interests me, sir,” replied
Lem
truthfully. “I used
to live in it. In fact I was born in that very house.”

“My, this is interesting,” said the
clerk politely. “Perhaps you would like to enter the shop and inspect it at
firsthand.”

“Thank you,” replied
Lem
gratefully. “It would give me a great deal of pleasure
so to do.”

Our hero followed after the affable
clerk and was permitted to examine his old home at close range. To tell the
truth, he saw it through a veil of tears, for he could think of nothing but his
poor mother who had disappeared.

“I wonder if you would be so kind as
to furnish me with a little information?” asked the clerk, pointing to a
patched old chest of drawers.
“Where would your mother have
put such a piece of furniture had she owned it?”

Lem’s
first thought on inspecting the article in question was to say that she would
have kept it in the woodshed, but he thought better of this when he saw how
highly the clerk valued it. After a little thought, he pointed to a space next
to the fireplace and said, “I think she would have set it there.”

“What did I tell you!” exclaimed the
delighted clerk to his colleagues, who had gathered around to hear
Lem’s
answer. “That’s just the spot I picked for it.”

The clerk then ushered
Lem
to the door, slipping a two-dollar note into the boy’s
hand as he shook it good-by.
Lem
did not want to take
the money because he felt that he had not earned it, but he was finally
prevailed upon to accept it. The clerk told
Lem
that
he had saved them the fee an expert would have demanded, since it was very
important for them to know exactly where the chest of drawers belonged.

Our hero was considerably elated at
his stroke of luck and marveled at the ease with which two dollars could be
earned in New York. At this rate of pay, he calculated, he would earn
ninety-six dollars for an eight-hour day or five hundred and severity-six
dollars for a six-day week. If he could keep it up, he would have a million in
no time.

From the store,
Lem
walked west to Central Park, where he sat down on a bench in the mall near the
bridle path to watch the society people ride by on their beautiful horses. His
attention was particularly attracted by a man driving a small spring wagon,
underneath which ran two fine Dalmatians or coach dogs, as they are sometimes
called. Although
Lem
was unaware of this fact, the
man in the wagon was none other than Mr.
Asa
Goldstein, whose shop he had just visited.

The country-bred boy soon noticed
that Mr. Goldstein was not much of a horseman. However, that individual was not
driving his beautiful team of matched bays for pleasure, as one might be led to
think, but for profit. He had accumulated a large collection of old wagons in
his warehouse and by driving one of them in the mall he hoped to start a vogue
for that type of equipage and thus sell off his stock.

While
Lem
was watching the storekeeper’s awkward handling of the “leathers” or reins, the
off horse, which was very skittish, took fright at a passing policeman and
bolted. His panic soon spread to the other horse and the wagon went careening
down the path wreaking havoc at every bound. Mr. Goldstein fell out when his
vehicle turned over, and
Lem
had to laugh at the
comical expression of mingled disgust and chagrin that appeared on his
countenance.

But suddenly
Lem’s
smile disappeared and his jaw became set, for he saw that a catastrophe was
bound to occur unless something was immediately done to halt the maddened
thoroughbreds.

The reason for the sudden
disappearance of the smile from our hero’s face is easily explained. He had
spied an old gentleman and his beautiful young daughter about to cross the
bridle path, and saw that in a few more seconds they would be trampled under
the iron hooves of the flying beasts.

Lem
hesitated only long enough to take a firm purchase on his store teeth,
then
dashed into the path of the horses. With great strength
and agility he grasped their bridles and dragged them to a rearing halt, a few
feet from the astounded and thoroughly frightened pair.

“That lad has saved your lives,”
said a bystander to the old gentleman, who was none other than Mr. Levi
Underdown
, president of the
Underdown
National Bank and Trust Company.

Unfortunately, however, Mr.
Underdown
was slightly deaf, and, although exceedingly
kind, as his many large charities showed, he was very short tempered. He
entirely misunderstood the nature of our hero’s efforts and thought that the
poor boy was a careless groom who had let his charges get out of hand. He
became extremely angry.

“I’ve a mind to give you in charge,
young man,” said the banker, shaking his umbrella at our hero.

“Oh, don’t, father!” interfered his
daughter Alice, who also misunderstood the incident. “Don’t have him arrested.
He was probably paying court to some pretty nursemaid and forgot about his
horses.” From this we can readily see that the young lady was of a romantic
turn of mind.

She smiled kindly at our hero, and
led her irate parent from the scene.

Lem
had
been unable to utter one word in explanation because, during his tussle with
the horses, his teeth had jarred loose and without them he was afraid to speak.
All he could do was to gaze after their departing backs with mute but
ineffectual anguish.

There being nothing else for it,
Lem
gave over the reins of the team to Mr. Goldstein’s
groom: who came running up at this juncture, and turned to search for his oral
equipment in the mud of the bridle path. While he was thus occupied, a man
representing the insurance company with which Mr. Goldstein carried a public
liability policy approached him.

“Here is ten dollars, my lad,” said
the claim adjuster. “The gentleman whose horses you so bravely stopped wishes
you to have this money as a reward.”

Lem
took
it without thinking.

“Please sign this for me,” added the
insurance man, holding out a legal form which released his company from any and
all claim to damages.

One of
Lem’s
eyes had been so badly injured by a flying stone that he could not see out of
it, but nevertheless he refused to sign.

The claim adjuster had recourse to a
ruse. “I am an autograph collector,” he said slyly. “Unfortunately, I have not
my album with me, but if you will be so kind as to sign this piece of paper
which I happened to have in my pocket, you will make me very happy. When I
return home, I will immediately transfer your autograph to a distinguished
place in my collection.”

Befuddled by the pain in his injured
eye,
Lem
signed in order to be rid of the importunate
fellow,
then
bent again to the task of finding his
store teeth. He finally discovered them deep in the mud of the bridle path.
After carefully prying the set loose, he went to a public drinking fountain for
the dual purpose of bathing both it and his hurt eye.

While he busied himself at the
fountain, a young man approached. This stranger was distinguished from the
usual run by his long black hair which tumbled in waves over the back of his
collar and by an unusually high and broad forehead. On his head he wore a soft,
black hat with an enormously wide brim.
Both his tie, which
was Windsor, and his gestures, which were Latin, floated with the same graceful
freedom as his hair.

“Excuse me,” said this odd-appearing
individual, “but I witnessed your heroic act and I wish to take the liberty of
congratulating you. In these effete times, it is rare indeed for one to witness
a hero in action.”

Lem
was
embarrassed. He hurriedly replaced his teeth and thanked the stranger for his
praise. He continued, however, to bathe his wounded eye, which was still giving
him considerable pain.

“Let me introduce myself,” the young
man continued. “I am
Sylvanus
Snodgrasse
,
a poet both by vocation and avocation. May I ask your name?”

“
Lemuel
Pitkin,” answered our hero, making no attempt to hide the fact that he was
suspicious of this self-styled “poet.” In fact there were many things about him
that reminded
Lem
of Mr. Wellington
Mape
.

“Mr. Pitkin,” he said grandly, “I
intend to write an ode about the deed performed by you this day. You do not
perhaps appreciate, having a true hero’s modesty, the significance, the
classicality—if I may be permitted a neologism—of your performance. Poor Boy,
Flying Team, Banker’s Daughter…it’s in the real American tradition and
perfectly fitted to my native lyre. Fie on your sickly
Prousts
,
U.S. poets must write about the U.S.”

Our hero did not venture to comment
on these sentiments. For one thing, his eye hurt so much that even his sense of
hearing was occupied with the pain.

Snodgrasse
kept talking, and soon a crowd of curious people gathered around him and poor
Lemuel
. The “poet” no longer addressed our hero, but the
crowd in general.

“Gentlemen,” said he in a voice that
carried all the way to Central Park South, “and ladies, I am moved by this
youth’s heroism to venture a few remarks.

“There have been heroes before him—
Leonidas
, Quintus
Maximus
, Wolfe
Tone, Deaf Smith, to mention only a few—but this should not prevent us from
hailing L. Pitkin as the hero, if not of our time, at least of the immediate
past.

“One of the most striking things
about his heroism is the dominance of the horse motif, involving, as it does,
not one but two horses. This is important because the depression has made all
us Americans conscious of certain spiritual lacks, not the least of which is
the symbolic horse.

“Every great nation has its symbolic
horses. The grandeur that was Greece is made immortal by those marvelous
equines, half god,
half
beast, still to be seen in the
corners of the Parthenon pediment. Rome, the eternal city, how perfectly is her
glory caught in those martial steeds that rear their fearful forms to Titus’s
triumph! And Venice, Queen of the Adriatic, has she not her winged sea horses,
kindred to both air and water?

“Alas, only we are without. Do not
point to General Sherman’s horse or I will be angry, for that craven hack, that
crowbait
, is nothing. I
repeat,
nothing. ‘What I want is for all my hearers to go home and immediately write to
their congressmen demanding that a statue depicting Pitkin’s heroic act be
erected in every public park throughout our great country.”

Although
Sylvanus
Snodgrasse
kept on in this vein for quite some time,
I will stop reporting his oration to acquaint you, dear reader, with his real
purpose. As you have probably surmised, it was not
so
innocent as it seemed. The truth is that while he kept the crowd amused, his
confederates circulated freely among its members and picked their pockets.

They had succeeded in robbing the
whole crowd, including our hero, when a policeman made his appearance.
Snodgrasse
immediately discontinued his address and hurried
off after his henchmen.

The officer dispersed the gathering
and everyone moved away except
Lem
, who was lying on
the ground in a dead faint. The bluecoat, thinking that the poor boy was drunk,
kicked him a few times, but when several hard blows in the groin failed to
budge him, he decided to call an ambulance.

One wintry morning, several weeks
after the incident in the park,
Lem
was dismissed
from the hospital minus his right eye. It had been so severely damaged that the
physicians had thought best to remove it.

He had no money, for, as we have
recounted,
Snod
.
grasse’s
henchmen had robbed him. Even the teeth
that. Warden Purdy had given him
were
gone. They had
been taken from him by the hospital authorities, who claimed that they did not
fit properly and were therefore a menace to his health.