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Updated: June 28, 2025
Those who had teams hitched in the square were hurrying them out of danger, and when we whirled by the court-house only one buggy remained in the road. That buggy belonged to Burkett, the constable. The town pays Burkett a percentage on the amount of work he does, and Burkett is keen on looking up new business. "Stop, there!" he shouted, as we came up. "Stop!" Nobody stopped.
He opened a drawer at the left-hand side of his desk and took out several sheets of foolscap and a number of letters. Shirley's heart beat faster as she caught sight of the letters. Were her father's among them? She wondered what kind of work John Burkett Ryder had for her to do and if she would do it whatever it was. Some literary work probably, compiling or something of that kind.
The famous Croesus, whose fortune was estimated at only eight millions in our money, was a pauper compared with John Burkett Ryder, whose holdings no man could count, but which were approximately estimated at a thousand millions of dollars.
But while Shirley avoided the topic that lay nearest her heart, she was consumed with a desire to tell her father of the hope she had of enlisting the aid of John Burkett Ryder. The great financier was certainly able to do anything he chose, and had not his son Jefferson promised to win him over to their cause? So, to-day, after Mrs.
He touched a bell and rose, which was a signal to the visitor that the interview was at an end. Mr. Bagley entered. "Sergeant Ellison is going," said Mr. Ryder. "Have him shown out, and send the Republican Committee up." "What!" exclaimed Shirley, changing colour, "you believe that John Burkett Ryder is at the bottom of this infamous accusation against father?"
This slip of a girl could not have written "The American Octopus." He advanced to greet Shirley. "You wish to see me, Madame?" he asked courteously. There were times when even John Burkett Ryder could be polite. "Yes," replied Shirley, her voice trembling a little; in spite of her efforts to keep cool. "I am here by appointment. Three o'clock, Mrs. Ryder's note said. I am Miss Green."
She had risen from her seat and stood facing him, her fists clenched, her face set and determined. Stott had never seen her in this mood and he gazed at her half admiringly, half curiously. "What will you do?" he asked with a slightly ironical inflection in his voice. "I am going to fight John Burkett Ryder!" she cried. Stott looked at her open-mouthed. "You?" he said. "Yes, I," said Shirley.
Ryder had returned from the play and gone to bed, serenely oblivious of the drama in real life that had been enacted at home, the servants locked the house up for the night and still John Burkett Ryder walked the floor of his sanctum, and late into the small hours of the morning the watchman going his lonely rounds, saw a light in the library and the restless figure of his employer sharply silhouetted against the white blinds.
But John Burkett Ryder never rested. There could be no rest for any man who had a thousand millions of dollars to take care of. Like Macbeth, he could sleep no more. When the hum of business life had ceased down town and he returned home from the tall building in lower Broadway, then his real work began.
The clock overhead began to strike. The last stroke had not quite died away when the big swinging doors from the street were thrown open and there entered a tall, thin man, gray-headed, and with a slight stoop, but keen eyed and alert. He was carefully dressed in a well-fitting frock coat, white waistcoat, black tie and silk hat. It was John Burkett Ryder, the Colossus.
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