Richard Harding Davis

“ Since then, giants had arisen in the land; men whose wealth made the fortune of Stephen Hallowell appear a comfortable competence, his schemes and stratagems, which, in their day, had bewildered Wall Street, as simple as the trading across the counter of a cross-roads store. ”

“ His anger, still unsatisfied, Gaylor turned upon Vance.
"And you," he cried, "you're going to jail, too. I'll drive——"
The voice of Mr. Hallowell, shaken with pain and distress, rose feebly, beseechingly. "Henry!" he begged, "I can't stand it!"
"Judge Gaylor!" thundered Rainey, "I won't be responsible if you keep this up."
With an exclamation of remorse, Vera ran to the side of the old man. With Rainey on his other hand, she raised him upright upon his feet.
"Lean on me," begged the girl breathlessly. "I'm very strong. Lean on me." ”

“ In a word, gentlemen, Stephen Hallowell has never been in better health, mentally and bodily. You can say that from me—and that's all there is to say."
"Then, we can say," persisted Irving, "that you say, that Walsh's story is a fake?"
"You can say it is not true," corrected Gaylor. "That's all, gentlemen." The audience was at an end. The young men moved toward the hall and Judge Gaylor turned to the bedroom. As he did so, he found that the new man on the Republic still held his ground. ”

“ With a conscious glance at the Judge, Rainey nodded and left them.
"No," continued the old man, "I want to talk to my niece, myself. But I don't want to talk to Winthrop. He's too clever a young man, Winthrop. In the merger case, you remember—had me on the stand for three hours. Made me talk, too." The mind of the old man suddenly veered at a tangent. "How the devil can Helen retain him?" he demanded peevishly. "She can't retain him. She hasn't any money. And he's District Attorney, too. It's against the law. Is he doing it as a speculation? Does he want to marry her?" ”

“ Hallowell struggled from his chair. Unaided, he moved to below the table and leaning against it looked, with unwilling but fascinated interest, at Vera's uplifted face.
"Someone in the spirit," Vera chanted, in an unemotional, drugged voice, "wishes to speak to Mr. Hallowell. Give me your hand."
"Quick!" directed Vance, "give her your hand. Take her hand."
"Yes, he is here," Vera continued. "A woman has a message for you, she is standing close beside you. She is holding out her arms. And she is trying, so hard, to tell you something. What is it?" the girl questioned. ”

“ In a celebrated criminal case in which Gaylor had acted as chief counsel, he had found Rainey complaisant and apparently totally without the moral sense. And when in Garrett he had discovered for Mr. Hallowell a model servant, he had also urged upon his friend, for his resident physician, his protégé Rainey.
Still at white heat, the older man began abruptly.
"This gentleman is from the Republic. He is going to publish a story that Mr. Hallowell has fallen under the influence of mediums, clairvoyants; that everything he does is on advice from the spirit world—" he turned sharply upon Lee. ”

“ Save that city editors were irritated that the presidents of certain railroads figured hastily on slips of paper, the fact that an old man and his millions would soon be parted, left New York undisturbed.
In the early '80's this would not have been so. Then, in the uplifting of the far West, Stephen Hallowell was a national figure, in the manœuvres of the Eastern stock market an active, alert power. In those days, when a man with a few millions was still listed as rich, his fortune was considered colossal. ”

“ Judge," he began earnestly, but in a voice which still held the drawl of the South, "I met a man from home last week on Broadway. He belonged to that spiritualistic school on Carondelet Street. He knows all that's going on in the spook world, and he tells me the ghost raisers have got their hooks into the old man pretty deep. Is that so?"
The bewilderment of Judge Gaylor was complete, and, without question, genuine.
"I don't know what you mean?" he said.
"My informant tells me," continued the reporter, "that Mr. Hallowell has embraced—if that's what you call it—spiritualism." ”

“ How'd your people get it; pretty straight?"
"Seemed straight to us," said Walsh. "Well, you didn't handle it that way," returned the other. "Why didn't you quote Rainey or Gaylor? It seems to me if a man's on the point of death—" he lowered his voice and glanced towards the closed door, "that his private doctor and his lawyer, might know something about it."
Standing alone with his back to the window was a reporter who had greeted no one and to whom no one had spoken. ”

“ Among those who are the gypsies of the cities, they were the aristocrats of their calling; and to them that calling was as legitimate a business as is, to the roadside gypsy, the swapping of horses. The fore-parents of each had followed that same calling, and to the children it was commonplace and matter-of-fact. It held no adventure, no moral obloquy.
"Prof." Paul Vance was a young man of under forty years. He looked like a fox. He had red eyes, alert and cunning, a long, sharp-pointed nose, a pointed red beard, and red eyebrows that slanted upward. ”

“ Unmoved, the other regarded the Judge keenly.
"Spiritualism," he repeated, "and that a bunch of these mediums have got him so hypnotized he can't call his soul his own, or his money, either. Is that true?"
Judge Gaylor's outburst was overwhelming. That it was genuine Mr. Lee, observing him closely, was convinced.
"Of all the outrageous, ridiculous—" the Judge halted, gasping for words, "and libelous statements!" he went on. "If you print that," he thundered, "Mr. Hallowell will sue your paper for half a million dollars. Can't you see the damage you would do? ”

“ That it's what should have been her father's share of the profits on the Coates-Hallowell coupling pin. But, as you have willed your niece so much money, although half of it is hers already, I advised her not to fight. Going to law is an expensive business.
"But she has found out—and that's what brings me uptown this morning—that you intend to make a new will, and leave all her money and your own to establish the Hallowell Institute. Now," Winthrop continued, with a propitiating smile, "Miss Coates also would like to be a philanthropist, in her own way, with her own money. ”

“ With distaste, the irritated city editors "followed up" the three-column story of the Despatch.
"Find out if there's any truth in that," they commanded. "The old man won't see you, but get a talk out of Rainey. And see Judge Gaylor. He's close to Hallowell. Find out from him if that story didn't start as a bear yarn in Wall Street."
So, when Walsh of the Despatch was conducted by Garrett, the butler of Mr. Hallowell, upstairs to that gentleman's library, he found a group of reporters already entrenched. At the door that opened from the library to the bedroom, the butler paused. ”

“ And, then, it was my money, and anything I give my niece is charity. She's not entitled——"
Garrett appeared at the door. "Miss Coates," he announced, "and Mr. Winthrop." Judge Gaylor raised a hand for silence, and as Mr. Hallowell sank back in his chair, Helen Coates, the only child of Catherine Coates, his sister, and the young District Attorney of New York came into the library. Miss Coates was a woman of between twenty-five and thirty, capable, and self-reliant. She had a certain beauty of a severe type, but an harrassed expression about her eyes made her appear to be always frowning. ”

“ When he talked of restitution, of giving the money to his niece, I asked 'Why?' I said, 'Leave it for a great monument to your memory. Isn't it better that ten million dollars should be spent in good works in your name, than that it should go to a chit of a child to be wasted by some fortune hunter? And—then—I evolved the Hallowell Institute, university, hospital, library, all under one roof, all under one direction ”

“ With eyes still closed, swaying slightly and with abrupt shudders running down her body, the girl continued in dull, fateful tones.
"She is a fair woman; about forty-five. She is speaking. She calls to you, 'Brother, Brother.'" Vera's voice rose excitedly. "It is the woman in the picture; your sister! Catherine! I see it written above her head, Catherine. In letters of light." She turned suddenly and fiercely. "Ask her your question!" he commanded. "Ask her your question, now!"
By the sudden swaying forward of Vance and Rainey ”

“ A patent coupling-pin, the invention of his brother-in-law, had given him his start, and, in introducing it, and in his efforts to force it upon the new railroads of the West, he had obtained a knowledge of their affairs. From that knowledge came his wealth. ”