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"No; Perkins is attending to that," said Henderson, rather indifferently, like a man awakened out of a pleasant dream. "Don't seem to need much fixing. The public are fond of parallels." Hollowell laughed. "I guess that's so till they get 'em." "Or don't get them," Henderson added. And then both laughed. "It looks as if it would go through this time. Bemis says the C. D.'s badly scared.
What Newport needs is a real palace, just to show those foreigners who come here and patronize us. Why is it, Mr. Hollowell, that all you millionaires can't think of anything better to do with your money than to put up a big hotel or a great elevator or a business block?"
"Oh, Henderson knows a good thing when he sees it," said Hollowell, complacently. It was not easy to be offended with Hollowell's kind-hearted boorishness, and after he had gone, Margaret sat a long time reflecting upon this new specimen of man in her experience.
Henderson unfolded the case, and saw seven photographs a showy-looking handsome woman in lace and jewels, and six children, handsome like their mother, the whole group with the photographic look of prosperity. Henderson looked at it as if it had been a mirror of his own destiny, and expressed his admiration. "Yes, it's hard to beat," Hollowell confessed, with a soft look in his face.
Social life had few attractions for Hollowell, for his family were in the West; he appeared to have no relations with any branch of government; he wanted no office, though his influence was much sought by those who did want it. "You spend a good deal of time here, Mr. Hollowell," Margaret said one day when he called in Henderson's absence. "Yes, ma'am, considerable.
Hollowell returned the salute. "Who's that?" asked Mrs. Hollowell. "That's Mrs. Henderson." "And the other one?" "I don't know her. She knows how to handle the ribbons, though." "I seen her at the Casino the other night, before you come, with that tandem-driving count. I don't believe he's any more count than you are." "Oh, he's all right. He's one of the Spanish legation.
Now Uncle Jerry Hollowell was neither oily nor frank; he was long-headed and cautious, and had a reputation for shrewdness and just enough of plasticity of conscience to remove him out of the list of the impracticable and over-scrupulous. This reputation that business men and politicians acquire would be a very curious study.
Morgan and my own, which seemed in some danger of disappearing for the "public good," Mrs. Fletcher's little fortune was nearly all invested in that sound "rock-bed" railway in the Southwest that Mr. Jerry Hollowell had recently taken under his paternal care.
Only a very few people knew such old hands as Uncle Jerry Hollowell, and such inquisitive bandits as Murad Ault that the house of Mavick was a house of cards, and that it might go down when the belief was destroyed that it was of granite.
The clerks in the outer offices, in the neglige of summer costumes, winked to each other as they saw old Jerry Hollowell enter and make his way to the inner room unannounced. Something was in the wind. "Well, old man," said Uncle Jerry, in the cheeriest manner, coming in, depositing his hat on the table, and taking a seat opposite Henderson, "we seem to have stirred up the animals."
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