Retiring from Business CHAPTER 14.
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A RETURN.
On the next morning, enclosed in an envelope, Mr. Franklin received a notification from one of the banks, that his note for five thousand dollars would be due in about two weeks.
"What does this mean?" he asked, in surprise. "I have no note out. Five thousand dollars! Strange! I must see about this."
And off he went, post haste, to the bank, and requested to see the note said to be held against him. It was produced.
"Who deposited this?" he inquired.
A broker in Wall Street was named.
Mr. Franklin went to the broker and inquired of him the name of the party, from whom it was received.
"I discounted the note for a young man of wealth and standing in the city," replied the broker.
"May I ask his name?"
"Have you an interest in knowing?" inquired the broker, looking curiously at Mr. Franklin.
"I have; and very great interest in knowing, as my name is on the note as drawer."
"Your name!" said the broker, evincing surprise.
"Will you now inform me from whom you received it?"
"I received it," replied the broker, "from the son of old Mr. Preston."
"From Edward Preston?"
"Yes Sir. I have another which I took from him three or four days ago, of the same amount, with sixty days to run."
"Another!" exclaimed Mr. Franklin.
"Yes sir. I hope there is nothing wrong about these notes, Mr. Franklin. I would be very sorry if there was. I supposed it was all right."
Without reply, Mr. Franklin turned and left the office. He had only taken a few steps from the broker's, when he met the young man of whom they had just been speaking. Edward Preston tried to pass Mr. Franklin under the appearance of not seeing him, but the latter laid his hand upon his arm with a sudden grasp. The young man affected to be surprised and offended at the rudeness, but Mr. Franklin interrupted an angry expression by saying, peremptorily,
"How, sir, did you come in possession of ten thousand dollars worth of my notes?"
The manner of Edward changed, and he said very coolly —
"I received it from your son,"
"From Edwin?"
"Yes, from Edwin." And he looked firmly at Mr. Franklin.
"It is strange that you should have transactions with my son to that amount," returned Mr. Franklin, as soon as he could control himself, speaking with assumed calmness. "Please, on what reason did you receive these notes? What was the value conveyed for them."
"Pardon me," returned Preston, coolly. "But I do not recognize your right to question me on this, or any other private matter. Enough, that I gave him value."
Mr. Franklin looked at the young man until the eyes of the latter fell beneath his steady gaze. As they did so, Edward Preston turned and walked away. But Mr. Franklin was by his side in a moment.
"I must know something more about this matter, young man," he said, sternly.
"What more would you like to know?" demanded Edward, turning with a look of defiance upon Mr. Franklin. "Did you not draw the notes?"
There was a pause on both sides.
"Or," added Preston, with a measured emphasis, "are they forgeries?"
For a few moments, the men looked at each other steadily. Then both retreated a few paces, and walked away in different directions.
Mr. Franklin was more than satisfied. The sad intelligence of his son's criminality fell upon his heart with a crushing force. That Preston was an accomplice in the guilt, and took the notes as forgeries, he did not for a moment doubt. But that in no way mitigated the pain so dreadful a discovery produced. He had walked only a few paces, when the thought that Preston might be able to give him some information of Edwin, glanced through his mind, and he turned quickly and ran after him.
"Can you tell me where my son is at this time?" he asked, as he came alongside of Preston.
"I cannot," was replied.
"When did you see him last?"
Preston thought for a moment, then said,
"Not for a week."
"Can you direct me to any place where I would be likely to hear of him?"
"Yes. I've seen him frequently at No. 753, Broadway. No doubt they can tell you something about him there."
Mr. Franklin went to a house in the upper part of Broadway, as directed. It was a large, and handsome residence. On ringing the bell, a servant came to the door. Of him the father inquired for Edwin, but the servant professed entire ignorance of any such person, and Mr. Franklin went away, satisfied that young Preston had purposely deceived him. He did not know that this was a club house, into which his son had been introduced, and where he had taken lessons in vice — an apt scholar.
"Ah! Mr. Franklin," said a voice by the side of the wretched father, as, with his eyes upon the ground, he was slowly passing down Broadway. He looked up sadly, and recognized an old acquaintance.
"I hope you are all safe with Clark & Ashwell," said this person, not waiting for any of the compliments of the day, "for I understand they were protested on Tuesday."
"Protested!"
"Yes. And it is said the failure will be a bad one. They have run down their business terribly since it went into their hands. The fact is, they were not fit to carry it on. But, I hope, as I said, that you are all safe with them."
"Very far from it. They still owe me twenty thousand dollars!"
"I am sorry to hear that, for I understand they won't pay twenty cents."
"Good Heaven! What can they have been doing?"
"Meddling in stocks, instead of attending to their legitimate business."
"Oh dear! Madness! Madness!"
"Most insane conduct," said the friend. "With a proper attention to business, they were sure of a fortune. But, instead of keeping their goods up to the right quality, and their stock as near the demand as possible, they killed their business by a poor article, and, even of that, no one was sure of getting enough for his regular orders. I quit dealing with them six months ago, and depend now for my supply on the East. And I know several other houses that have done the same. Everyone in the trade has regretted your retirement from business."
"Has a meeting of the creditors been called?" inquired Mr. Franklin.
"I understand there is to be one tomorrow. You will attend, of course."
"I presume so."
"Get back, if you can, the establishment they have so shamefully mismanaged," said the acquaintance, speaking earnestly, "and put life into it again. Your ability and enterprise are needed in this branch of business, Mr. Franklin. We cannot spare you. We cannot afford to let you retire from active service. If you will do this, you need not sigh for the loss of twenty thousand dollars."
Mr. Franklin made no reply to this, although he said to himself, mentally —
"If things go on as they are going at present, I shall be driven back into business in order to get bread for my family. I was, perhaps, a fool ever to have left it!"
With a heavy heart did Mr. Franklin return to his wife.
"Have you heard from Edwin?" eagerly asked the latter, as he entered. Mr. Franklin shook his head.
"Not a word?"
"Only that he has committed forgeries upon me for ten thousand dollars!" replied Mr. Franklin, without reflecting upon what might be the consequences of such an abrupt announcement.
Had a bullet pierced the brain of the unhappy wife, she could not have fallen more suddenly. The conduct of Florence had seemed to her more than she could bear. This news, so terrible in its character, and coming upon her without even a shadow of warning, snapped the thread of endurance, and nature sought refuge in total unconsciousness, from a worse evil.
On recovering from this state of bodily and mental paralysis, Mrs. Franklin was so ill as to require the aid of a physician. Her mind partially wandered, and the whole physical system was prostrated. To other causes of anxiety, Mr. Franklin had now added the greatest fears for his wife, who, as day after day went by, seemed rather to sink under the pressure that was upon her, than to gain strength to throw it off.
In the meantime another letter came from Florence, addressed particularly to her mother, begging for a word to say that she was forgiven. The whole tone of the letter showed that the silence of her parents deeply distressed her, and that, until she was restored to favor, she could not have a moment's peace of mind. Mr. Franklin had just turned from the bed of his wife, after having, in vain, striven to fix her thoughts rationally on some subject of minor importance, when this letter was put into his hands. He read it almost at a glance, and then tossed it from him with a gesture of impatience. An hour afterwards, he read it again, but with different feelings. What they were, may in part be gathered from the brief answer he penned to her earnest appeal.
"My Daughter:
"When your second letter came, your mother was too ill either to read it or understand it, if read by another. Your conduct, and that of Edwin is killing her. If you wish to see her alive, come home.
"Your Father."
A more cruel epistle, under the circumstances, could hardly have been written. But Mr. Franklin's feelings were excited to their utmost tension, and he was scarcely responsible for his conduct.
It was a week from the day on which Florence deserted her parents, for the protection of a man of whose real principles and character, she knew nothing, when this first response from home came. LeGrand, who was by her side when she read it, was not prepared for the wild burst of grief that followed its perusal. He tried to soothe her, and spoke words of encouragement. Florence answered these by handing him the letter, and saying as she did so —
"Take me back! Oh! take me back quickly!" LeGrand was about as little prepared as his young wife, for this. Here was a result upon which neither had calculated. A brief estrangement, and then a reconciliation. This had been the money hunter's confident anticipation. But here was the promise of something different. Should the mother's illness prove fatal, a portion of family trouble, for which he had no taste, would come with the fortune of his wife. In the old gentleman's letter, there seemed to him a kind of ferocity that argued no very gentle reception of either him or his bride; and he proposed that Florence should, on their arrival in New York, rejoin her parents alone. To this she had no objection to make. It was a matter, now, of indifference to her, whether her husband were with her in the meeting, or not. She thought only of her mother, whom she feared, from the tenor of her father's letter, that she would not find alive.
A change for the better, had taken place during the period that elapsed from the time Mr. Franklin's letter was despatched, until Florence was enabled to reach New York. The mother had just been reading, for the third time, the last communication from her daughter, and was weeping over it, when the door of her chamber opened quickly, and Florence came rushing in.
"Mother! Mother!" she exclaimed, passionately, as she flung herself forward upon the bed, and hid her face upon her mother's bosom, where, in spite of all efforts to control herself, she lay weeping and sobbing, for many minutes. Mr. Franklin entered, before either the mother or daughter had recovered from their first overmastering emotion. Florence, whose ear detected, instantly, the step of her father, arose from the bed, and turned to him with a timid, deprecating look.
"Florence!" he said, but in a tone that caused his daughter to start forward and throw herself, with a fresh gush of tears into his arms. Thus was the erring one forgiven; and before the day had closed, her husband was received as a member of the family, and with a much better grace than even he had anticipated. He knew not all the causes which had conspired to break the will, and humble, suddenly, the pride of Mr. Franklin. Had he known everything at the time, he would have felt far less satisfied than he did, at the result of his speculation.
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