Books: Her Weight in Gold
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George Barr McCutcheon >> Her Weight in Gold
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15 Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
[Illustration Caption: Martha told him that he had always been her
ideal and that she worshipped him.]
HER WEIGHT IN GOLD
By GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON
NEW YORK
1914
Nearly all of the stories presented in this volume appeared separately
in various magazines. The author desires to acknowledge his thanks to
the publications for courtesies extended by their editors: The
National Magazine, Short Stories, the Saturday Evening Post, The
Reader, The Woman's World, Good Housekeeping and The Illustrated
Sunday Magazine.
CONTENTS
HER WEIGHT IN GOLD
THE MAID AND THE BLADE
MR. HAMSHAW'S LOVE AFFAIR
THE GREEN RUBY
THE GLOAMING GHOSTS
WHEN GIRL MEETS GIRL
QUIDDLERS THREE
THE LATE MR. TAYLOR
THE TEN DOLLAR BILL
HER WEIGHT IN GOLD
"Well the question is: how much does she weigh?" asked Eddie Ten Eyck
with satirical good humour.
His somewhat flippant inquiry followed the heated remark of General
Horatio Gamble, who, in desperation, had declared that his step-
daughter, Martha, was worth her weight in gold.
The General was quite a figure in the town of Essex. He was the
president of the Town and Country Club and, besides owning a splendid
stud, was also the possessor of a genuine Gainsborough, picked up at
the shop of an obscure dealer in antiques in New York City for a
ridiculously low price (two hundred dollars, it has been said), and
which, according to a rumour started by himself, was worth a hundred
thousand if it was worth a dollar, although he contrived to keep the
secret from the ears of the county tax collector. He had married late
in life, after accumulating a fortune that no woman could despise, and
of late years had taken to frequenting the Club with a far greater
assiduity than is customary in most presidents.
Young Mr. Ten Eyck's sarcasm was inspired by a mind's-eye picture of
Miss Martha Gamble. To quote Jo Grigsby, she was "so plain that all
comparison began and ended with her." Without desiring to appear
ungallant, I may say that there were many homely young women in Essex;
but each of them had the delicate satisfaction of knowing that Martha
was incomparably her superior in that respect.
"I am not jesting, sir," said the General with asperity. "Martha may
not be as good-looking as--er--some girls that I've seen, but she is a
jewel, just the same. The man who gets her for a wife will be a blamed
sight luckier than the fellows who marry the brainless little fools we
see trotting around like butterflies." (It was the first time that
Eddie had heard of trotting butterflies.)
"She's a fine girl," was his conciliatory remark.
"She is pure gold," said the General with conviction. "Pure gold,
sir."
"A nugget," agreed Eddie expansively. "A hundred and eighty pound
nugget, General. Why don't you send her to a refinery?"
The General merely glared at him and subsided into thoughtful silence.
He was in the habit of falling into deep spells of abstraction at such
times as this. For the life of him, he couldn't understand how Martha
came by her excessive plainness. Her mother was looked upon as a
beautiful woman and her father (the General's predecessor) had been a
man worth looking at, even from a successor's point of view. That
Martha should have grown up to such appalling ugliness was a source of
wonder, not only to the General, but to Mrs. Gamble herself.
Young Mr. Ten Eyck was the most impecunious spendthrift in Essex. He
lived by his wits, with which he was more generously endowed than
anything in the shape of gold or precious jewels. His raiment was
accumulative. His spending-money came to him through an allowance that
his grandmother considerately delivered to him at regular periods, but
as is the custom with such young men he was penniless before the
quarter was half over. At all times he was precariously close to being
submerged by his obligations. Yet trouble sat lightly upon his head,
if one were to judge by outward appearances. Beneath a bland, care-
free exterior, however, there lurked in Edward's bosom a perpetual
pang of distress over the financial situation.
What worried him most was the conviction that all signs pointed toward
the suspension of credit in places where he owed money, and, Young Mr.
Ten Eyck's sarcasm was inspired by a mind's-eye picture of Miss Martha
Gamble. To quote Jo Grigsby, she was "so plain that all comparison
began and ended with her." Without desiring to appear ungallant, I may
say that there were many homely young women in Essex; but each of them
had the delicate satisfaction of knowing that Martha was incomparably
her superior in that respect.
"I am not jesting, sir," said the General with asperity. "Martha may
not be as good-looking as--er--some girls that I've seen, but she is a
jewel, just the same. The man who gets her for a wife will be a blamed
sight luckier than the fellows who marry the brainless little fools we
see trotting around like butterflies." (It was the first time that
Eddie had heard of trotting butterflies.)
"She's a fine girl," was his conciliatory remark.
"She is pure gold," said the General with conviction. "Pure gold,
sir."
"A nugget," agreed Eddie expansively. "A hundred and eighty pound
nugget, General. Why don't you send her to a refinery?"
The General merely glared at him and subsided into thoughtful silence.
He was in the habit of falling into deep spells of abstraction at such
times as this. For the life of him, he couldn't understand how Martha
came by her excessive plainness. Her mother was looked upon as a
beautiful woman and her father (the General's predecessor) had been a
man worth looking at, even from a successor's point of view. That
Martha should have grown up to such appalling ugliness was a source of
wonder, not only to the General, but to Mrs. Gamble herself.
Young Mr. Ten Eyck was the most impecunious spendthrift in Essex. He
lived by his wits, with which he was more generously endowed than
anything in the shape of gold or precious jewels. His raiment was
accumulative. His spending-money came to him through an allowance that
his grandmother considerately delivered to him at regular periods, but
as is the custom with such young men he was penniless before the
quarter was half over. At all times he was precariously close to being
submerged by his obligations. Yet trouble sat lightly upon his head,
if one were to judge by outward appearances. Beneath a bland, care-
free exterior, however, there lurked in Edward's bosom a perpetual
pang of distress over the financial situation.
What worried him most was the conviction that all signs pointed toward
the suspension of credit in places where he owed money, and, as he
owed without discrimination, the future seemed hard to contemplate.
Prudent mothers stood defiantly between him and what might have been
prosperity. He could win the hearts of daughters with shameful
regularity and ease, but he could not delude the heads of the families
to which they belonged. They knew him well and wisely.
The conversation between him and General Gamble took place in the
reading-room of the Town and Country Club. There was a small table
between them, and glasses.
"What is the market price of gold to-day, General?" asked Eddie
impudently, after he had watched the old man's gloomy countenance out
of the corner of his eye for the matter of three minutes or more.
The General regarded him with deep scorn. "Gold? What do you know
about gold? You seldom see anything more precious than copper."
"That's no joke," agreed Eddie with his frank smile. "I am the only,
original penny limit. That reminds me, General. I meant to speak of it
before, but somehow it slipped my mind. Could you lend me--"
The General held up his hand. "I've been waiting for that, Eddie.
Don't humiliate yourself by asking for a small amount. I haven't the
remotest idea how much you already owe me, but it doesn't matter in
view of the fact that you'll never pay it. You were about to request
the loan of ten dollars, my boy. Why not ask for a respectable
amount?--say, fifty dollars."
Eddie's heart leaped. "That's just the amount I meant to ask you to
let me have for a week or two. 'Pon my word, it is."
"Well," said the General, taking a notebook from his pocket and
carefully jotting down an entry with his gold-tipped pencil, "I
cheerfully give it to you, Eddie. I shall credit your account with
that amount. Fifty dollars--um! It is a new system I have concluded to
adopt. Every time you ask me for a loan I shall subtract the amount
from what you already owe me. In time, you see, the whole debt will be
lifted,--and you'll not owe me a cent." Eddie blinked. A slow grin
crept into his face as he grasped the irony in the General's scheme.
"Fine financing, General. It suits me to a dot. By the way, do you
think you can spare another hundred or two?"
"The books are closed for the month," said the General placidly. He
rang the bell on the table. "More ice, boy, and the same bottle. As I
was saying, Eddie, I can't for the life of me see why you fellows are
so blind when it comes to Martha. She is--"
"We are not blind," interrupted Eddie, not at all annoyed by his
failure to negotiate the loan. "That's just the trouble. If a blind
man came along, I've no doubt he could see something attractive in
her."
"Damme! If she were my own daughter, I'd thrash you for that remark,
sir."
"If she were your own daughter, you wouldn't be discussing her with a
high-ball in your hand."
The General coughed. "Ahem! Eddie, I'd give a good deal to see that
girl married. Leave the bottle on the table, boy. She will have money
--a lot of it--one of these days. There are dozens of young men that we
know who'd do 'most anything for money. I--By George!" He broke off to
stare with glittering eyes at the face of the young man opposite. A
great thought was expanding in his brain.
Eddie shifted nervously. "Why are you looking at me like that? I don't
need it that badly."
"I'd never thought of you, Eddie,--'pon my word I hadn't. Not until
this moment. You need money worse than any one I know. There isn't
another girl in town who would marry you, and Martha WOULD. Believe
me, she would! And let me tell you, sir, you couldn't find a truer
wife than Martha. You--"
"She couldn't help being true," mused Eddie, rattling the ice in his
empty glass. The General pushed the bottle toward him.
"She is a bit older than you, I'll admit," pursued the General
reflectively. "Worth her weight in gold," he murmured with a sort of
ecstasy in his voice.
Young Ten Eyck assumed an injured air. "I am poor, General Gamble, but
I am NOT blind."
"She likes you," went on the older man, revelling in the new-found
hope. "You don't amount to much,--and she knows it, I suppose,--but
you can have her, my boy. She'll be the richest girl in Essex when I
die. Take her, my boy; I gladly give my consent. Will you permit me to
congratu--"
"One moment, if you please. In a case like this, you would NEVER die.
It would be just my luck. No, I thank you. I decline the honour. If
you could perform a miracle and transform her into REAL gold, I might
consider the proposition, but not as it now stands."
"She weighs about one-eighty," said the General speculatively.
Eddie glanced at him sharply. "One hundred and eighty pounds in gold.
Quite a pile, eh?"
The General was silent for a long time, permitting the vague idea to
thrive in his harassed mind. His young companion was moodily trying to
estimate the value of one hundred and eighty pounds of virgin gold.
At last the General reached a conclusion. It was a rather heroic
effort. He relighted his cigar with trembling fingers.
"I suppose you haven't heard of the wedding present I intend to bestow
upon the fortunate man who leads her to the altar!" said he, casting
the fatal die.
"No; but a separate house and lot wouldn't be despised, I should say."
"Nonsense. By the way, Eddie, this must not go any farther. It's
strictly entre nous. I don't want to have the dear girl pestered to
death by fortune hunters. On his wedding day the man who marries
Martha is to have the equivalent of her weight in double eagles. Isn't
that ra--rather handsome?"
He sank back and waited for the seed to sink deeply into Ten Eyck
soil. Eddie's eyelids flickered. The grin of a Cheshire cat came to
his lips involuntarily and remained there without modification for the
matter of an hour or two.
"Great!" he said at last.
"I must be on my way," observed the wily step-father, beating a
retreat so hastily that Eddie missed the opportunity to scoff. But the
contemplative smile remained just as he had left it.
Several days passed before the two met again. The General had sowed
wisely, and he was reasonably certain of the harvest. He knew that it
would be hard for young Ten Eyck to bring himself to the sacrificial
altar; but that he would come and would bend his neck was a foregone
conclusion. He went on the theory that if you give a man rope enough
he'll hang himself, and he felt that Eddie was almost at the end of
his rope in these cruel days.
As for Eddie, he tried to put the thought out of his mind, but as time
went on he caught himself many times--(with a start of shame)--trying
to approximate the worth of Martha Gamble on the basis set forth by
her step-father. The second day after the interview he consulted a
friend of his who happened to be a jeweller. From him he ascertained
the present market value of twenty-four carat gold. So much for the
start!
His creditors were threatening to sue or to "black-list" him; his
friends long since had begun to dodge him, fearing the habitual
request for temporary loans; his allowance was not due for several
weeks. Circumstances were so harsh that even Martha appeared desirable
by contrast. He felt an instinctive longing for rest, and peace, and--
pecuniary absolution.
He was therefore deserving of pity when he finally surrendered to the
inevitable. How he cursed himself--(and his creditors)--as he set out
to find the General on that bright spring day when every other living
creature on earth seemed to be happy and free from care. Kismet!
General Gamble was reading in a quiet corner of the Club. That is to
say, he had the appearance of one reading. As a matter of fact, he had
been watching Eddie's shy, uncertain evolutions for half an hour or
more, and he chuckled inwardly. As many as ten times the victim
strolled through the reading room, on the pretext of looking for some
one. Something told the General that he was going to lose Martha.
At last Eddie approached him. He came with the swift impetuosity of a
man who has decided and is afraid to risk a reaction.
"Hello, General," was his crisp greeting as he dropped into the chair
which the astute old gentleman had placed, with premeditation, close
to his own some time before. He went straight to the point. "I've been
thinking over what you said the other day about Martha. Well, I'll
marry her."
"You!" exclaimed the General, simulating incredulity. "You!"
"Yes. I'll be IT. How much does she really weigh?"
"Are--are you in earnest, my boy?" cried the other. "Why, she'll be
tickled to death!"
"May I have her?"
"God bless you,--YES!"
"I suppose I ought to go up and see her and--and tell her I love her,"
said Eddie lugubriously. "Or," with a fine inspiration, "perhaps you
wouldn't mind telling her for me. I--"
"Tell her yourself, you young rascal," cried the General in fine good
humour, poking his prospective stepson-in-law in the ribs.
Eddie winced. "You can do that to me now, but if you jab me in the
ribs after I'm married I'll jab you in the eye."
"Good! I like your spirit. Gad, I love a fighting-man! And now, my
boy, it seems to me there's no sense in delaying matters. You have my
consent. As a matter of form you ought to get Martha's. She'll take
you, of course, but I--I suppose she would like the idea of being
proposed to. They all do. I daresay you two can settle the point in a
jiffy in some quiet nook up at the--But, there! I shall not offer
suggestions to you in an affair of the heart, my son. Will you be up
to see her this evening?"
Eddie drew a long breath. "If--if she has no other engagement."
"Engagement?" gasped the General, with popping eyes. "She hasn't sat
up after eight o'clock in four years, except on Christmas Eve. You
won't be disturbed; so come around."
"Perhaps, to be sure of finding her up, I'd better come to dinner."
"By all means. Stay as late as you like, too. She won't get sleepy to-
night. Not a bit of it." He arose to depart.
"Just a moment, General," said Eddie curtly. "We've got a few
preliminaries to arrange before I commit myself. Here is a paper for
you to sign. Business is business, you know, and this is the first
really business-like thing I've ever done. Be good enough to read this
paper very carefully before signing."
General Gamble put on his glasses and read the brief, but ample
contract which bound him to pay to Edward Peabody Ten Eyck, on the day
that he was married to Martha Gamble, for better or for worse, an
amount equivalent to the value of her weight in pure gold. He
hesitated for one brief, dubious moment, then called for pen, ink, and
paper. When these articles were brought to him, he deliberately drew
up a second contract by which Edward Ten Eyck bound himself to wed
Martha Gamble (and no other) on a day to be named by mutual consent at
a later date--but not very much later, he was privately resolved.
"Now," said he, "we'll each sign one. You sha'n't get the better of
me, my boy."
Each signed in the presence of two waiters, neither of whom knew the
nature of the instruments.
"Troy weight," said the General magnanimously. "She is a jewel, you
know."
"Certainly. It's stipulated in the contract--twenty-four carat gold.
You said pure, you remember. You may have noticed that I take her at
the prevailing market price of gold. It is now four cents a carat.
Twenty-four carats in a pennyweight. That makes ninety-six cents per
pennyweight. Twenty pennyweight in an ounce, and there we have
nineteen dollars and twenty cents per ounce. We'll--we'll weigh her in
by ounces."
"That's reasonable. The price of gold isn't likely to fluctuate much."
"It must be distinctly understood that you keep her well-fed from this
day on, General. I won't have her fluctuating. She hasn't any silly
notions about reducing, has she?"
"My dear fellow, she poses as a Venus," cried the General. "Good! And
here's another point: pardon me for suggesting it, but you understand
that she's to weigh in--er--that is to say, her clothing is to be
weighed in with her."
"What's that?"
"You heard what I said. She's to be settled for--dressed." "Good Lord,
she isn't a chicken!"
"Nobody said she was. It is fit and proper that her garments should be
weighed with her. Hang it all, man, I'm marrying her clothes as well
as anything else."
"I will not agree to that. It's preposterous."
"I don't mean her entire wardrobe. Just the going-away gown and hat.
You can't very well ask her to weigh herself without any--But as
gentlemen we need not pursue the matter any farther. You shall have
your way about it."
"She has a fine pair of scales in her bedroom. She weighs herself
every night for her own gratification. I don't see why she can't do it
once or twice for my sake."
"But women are such dreadful liars about their own weight. She'll be
sure to lop off fifteen or twenty pounds in the telling. Hang it, I
want witnesses."
The General assumed a look of distress. "Remember, sir, that you are
speaking of your future wife. You'll have to take her word."
Eddie slumped down in his chair, muttering something about
niggardliness.
"I suppose I'll have to concede the point." His eyes twinkled. "I say,
it would be a horrible shock to you, General, if she were to refuse me
to-night."
"She sha--WON'T!" said the General, setting his jaw, but turning a
shade paler. "She'll jump at the chance."
Eddie sighed dismally. "Doesn't it really seem awful to you?"
"Having you for a son-in-law? YES."
"You know I'm only doing this because I want to set up in business for
myself and need the money," explained the groom-elect in an effort to
justify himself. "Oh, another little point. I'd almost forgotten it. I
suppose it will be perfectly convenient for us to live with you for a
year or two, until I--"
"No!" thundered the General. "Not by a long shot! You go to
housekeeping at once, do you understand?"
"But think of her poor mother's feelings--"
"Her mother has nothing whatever to do with it, sir. See here, we'll
put that in the contract." He was visibly disturbed by the thought of
what the oversight might have meant to him. "And now, when shall we
have the wedding?"
"Perhaps we'd better leave that to Martha."
"We'll leave nothing to anybody."
"She'll want to get a trousseau together and all that sort of thing.
I'm ready to go through with it at any time, but you know what girls
are." He was perspiring.
"Yes," said the General with a reminiscent light in his eye. "I
daresay they all enjoy a few weeks of courtship and love-making."
Eddie gulped suddenly and then shot a quick, hunted look toward the
buffet door.
"Have a drink?" demanded the other abruptly. He had caught the sign of
danger.
They strolled into the buffet, arm-in-arm, one loving the world in
general, the other hating everybody in it, including the General.
Before they parted Eddie Ten Eyck extracted a solemn promise from his
future step-father-in-law that he would ascertain Martha's exact
weight and report the figure to him on the following day.
"It will seem easier if I know just about what to expect," explained
the young man.
That very afternoon the General, with a timidity that astonished him,
requested his stepdaughter to report her correct weight to him on the
following morning. He kept his face well screened behind his newspaper
while speaking, and his voice was a little thick.
"What for, father?" asked Martha, looking up from her book in
surprise. Her eyes seemed to grow even larger than the lenses of her
spectacles.
"Why, you see--er--I'm figuring on a little more insurance," he
stammered.
"What has my weight to do with it?"
"It isn't life insurance," he made haste to explain. A bright idea
struck him. "It is fire insurance, my dear."
"I don't see what my--"
"Of course you don't," he interrupted genially. "It's this way. The
fire insurance companies are getting absurdly finicky about the risks.
Now they insist on knowing the weight of every inmate of the houses
they insure. Has something to do with the displacement of oxygen, I
believe. Your mother and I--and the servants, too--expect to be
weighed to-night."
"Oh," she said, and resumed her reading.
He waited for a while, fumbling nervously with his watch chain.
"By the way, my dear," he said, "what have you been doing to that
bully chap, Eddie Ten Eyck?"
"Doing to him? What do you mean?"
"Just what I say."
"I haven't seen the miserable loafer in months," she said. Her voice
was heavy, not unlike that of a man. For some reason she shuffled
uneasily in her chair. The book dropped into her capacious lap.
"You've been doing something behind my back, you sly minx," he chided.
"What do you think happened to-day?"
"To Eddie Ten Eyck?"
"In a way, yes. He came up to me in the Club and asked my permission
to pay--er--court to you, my dear. He said he loved you better than--
Hey! Look out there! What the dev--Hi, Mother! Come here quick! Good
Heaven, she's going to die!"
Poor Martha had collapsed in a heap, her arms dangling limply over the
side of the chair, her eyes bulging and blinking in a most grotesque
manner. At first glance one would have sworn she was strangling.
Afterwards the General denounced himself as an unmitigated idiot for
having given her such a shock. He ought to have known better.
Mrs. Gamble rushed downstairs in great alarm, and it was not long
before they had Martha breathing naturally, although the General
almost made that an impossibility by the ruthless manner in which he
fanned her with the very book she had been reading--a heavy volume
which he neglected to open.
The whirligig room reduced itself to a library for Martha once more,
not so monotonous as it once had been, no doubt, but still a library.
Out of the turmoil of her own emotions, she managed to grasp enough of
what the General was saying to convince herself that this was not
another dream but a reality, and she became so excited that her mother
advised her to go to bed for a while before dinner, if she expected to
appear at her best when Eddie arrived.
For the first time since early childhood, Martha blushed as she
attempted to trip lightly upstairs. As a matter of fact, she DID trip
on next to the top step and sprawled. Under ordinary circumstances she
would have been as mad as a wet hen, but on this happy occasion she
merely cried out, when her parents dashed into the hall below on
hearing the crash:
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