The Gilded Age - Mark Twain [170]
And Mr. Bolton yielded. He could never refuse such appeals. If he had befriended a man once and been cheated by him, that man appeared to have a claim upon him forever. He shrank, however, from telling his wife what he had done on this occasion, for he knew that if any person was more odious than Small to his family it was Bigler.
“Philip tells me,” Mrs. Bolton said that evening, “that the man Bigler has been with thee again to-day. I hope thee will have nothing more to do with him.”
“He has been very unfortunate,” replied Mr. Bolton, uneasily.
“He is always unfortunate, and he is always getting thee into trouble. But thee didn’t listen to him again?”
“Well, mother, his family is in want, and I lent him my name—but I took ample security. The worst that can happen will be a little inconvenience.”
Mrs. Bolton looked grave and anxious, but she did not complain or remonstrate; she knew what a “little inconvenience” meant, but she knew there was no help for it. If Mr. Bolton had been on his way to market to buy a dinner for his family with the only dollar he had in the world in his pocket, he would have given it to a chance beggar who asked him for it. Mrs. Bolton only asked (and the question showed that she was no more provident than her husband where her heart was interested),
“But has thee provided money for Philip to use in opening the coal mine?”
“Yes, I have set apart as much as it ought to cost to open the mine, as much as we can afford to lose if no coal is found. Philip has the control of it, as equal partner in the venture, deducting the capital invested. He has great confidence in his success, and I hope for his sake he won’t be disappointed.”
Philip could not but feel that he was treated very much like one of the Bolton family—by all except Ruth. His mother, when he went home after his recovery from his accident, had affected to be very jealous of Mrs. Bolton, about whom and Ruth she asked a thousand questions—an affectation of jealousy which no doubt concealed a real heartache, which comes to every mother when her son goes out into the world and forms new ties. And to Mrs. Sterling, a widow, living on a small income in a remote Massachusetts village, Philadelphia was a city of many splendors. All its inhabitants seemed highly favored, dwelling in ease and surrounded by superior advantages. Some of her neighbors had relations living in Philadelphia, and it seemed to them somehow a guarantee of respectability to have relations in Philadelphia. Mrs. Sterling was not sorry to have Philip make his way among such well-to-do people, and she was sure that no good fortune could be too good for his deserts.
“So, sir,” said Ruth, when Philip came from New York, “you have been assisting in a pretty tragedy. I saw your name in the papers. Is this woman a specimen of your western friends?”
“My only assistance,” replied Philip, a little annoyed, “was in trying to keep Harry out of a bad scrape, and I failed after all. He walked into her trap, and he has been punished for it. I’m going to take him up to Ilium to see if he won’t work steadily at one thing, and quit his nonsense.”
“Is she as beautiful as the newspapers say she is?”
“I don’t know, she has a kind of beauty—she is not like—”
“Not like Alice?”
“Well, she is brilliant; she was called the handsomest woman in Washington—dashing, you know, and sarcastic and witty. Ruth, do you believe a woman ever becomes a devil?”
“Men do, and I don’t know why women shouldn’t. But I never saw one.”
“Well, Laura Hawkins comes very near it. But it is dreadful to think of her fate.”
“Why, do you suppose they will hang a woman? Do you suppose they