Higginbotham

“ After all, the man is a stranger here, and whether there's glass in his bed or not we ought to try and cheer him up. Higginbotham isn't very interesting. I'm sure he's boring Willoughby already. I expect the poor man is feeling a bit lonely too, seeing the Granuaile go off. By the way, I wonder where she's going to? She headed for the south point of the island, and that looks rather as if she meant to fetch Inishmore. I hope to goodness Higginbotham hasn't been talking about Sir Giles and the tuberculosis. ”

“ As he grew silent, Bernard Higginbotham got the reins and did the talking. He was a success himself, and proud of it. He was self-made. No one had helped him. He owed no man. He was fulfilling his duty as a citizen and bringing up a large family. And there was Higginbotham’s Cash Store, that monument of his own industry and ability. He loved Higginbotham’s Cash Store as some men loved their wives. He opened up his heart to Martin, showed with what keenness and with what enormous planning he had made the store. And he had plans for it, ambitious plans. The neighborhood was growing up fast. ”

“ Miss Higginbotham is intensely fond of children and animals, and in all she writes there is a wholesome, happy flavor. Bright and vivacious in manner and of a gracious personality, she makes an instant and favorable impression upon those with whom she comes into contact, who preserve pleasing recollections of her apt and interesting conversation. ”

“ Higginbotham, with Thomas O'Flaherty Pat, a dignified captive, entered the hut. The old man took off his hat and bowed courteously to the men in front of him. He held himself erect. His fine eyes wandered gravely round the hut. His face expressed neither curiosity nor obsequiousness. Mr. Willoughby was a gentleman, accustomed to the society of titled hostesses and the manners of exclusive London clubs. Higginbotham could behave gracefully at suburban tennis parties. Meldon and Father Mulcrone were strong and self-assertive men. ”

“ It was a very dilapidated place, standing by itself two fields higher up than the cottage in which Mary Kate's father lived. He went over all he knew about the field with the hole in it. It was, so Higginbotham said, a very small and barren field. There was no fence round the hole; Higginbotham had lamented that. A heifer had fallen into it and got killed. There was nothing, so far as he could see, which could possibly interest Sir Giles about the cabin, the field, or the hole. Why should a man, out on a search for treasure, care to view the scene of a heifer's death? ”

“ As the car crossed the zone of scattered dwellings that separated Oakland from Berkeley, he kept a lookout for a familiar, two-story building along the front of which ran the proud sign, HIGGINBOTHAM'S CASH STORE. Martin Eden got off at this corner. He stared up for a moment at the sign. It carried a message to him beyond its mere wording. A personality of smallness and egotism and petty underhandedness seemed to emanate from the letters themselves. Bernard Higginbotham had married his sister, and he knew him well. He let himself in with a latch-key and climbed the stairs to the second floor. ”

“ Higginbotham, with that curious memory which only chess-players possess, had insisted on going over each of the four games he had won and showing to the Major where the weakness of his moves lay. Meldon interrupted the fourth demonstration.
"Wake up, you two," he cried as he entered the cabin, "and let's get tea. I'm as hungry as if I hadn't touched food to-day. I'll tell you what it is, Higginbotham; I wouldn't like to be an inhabitant of this island of yours when there's a famine on. I never came across such a place in my life for raising an appetite on a man. ”

“ Higginbotham is the sort of man a journalist would fasten on at once. A really smart man at his trade would scent Higginbotham from miles and miles away, and would track him over land and sea. Higginbotham would talk all day long if he got any encouragement. He'd pour out just the sort of sentimental rot about improving the conditions of the people's life that the plump, kind-hearted Englishman loves to read. There's a good deal to be said for that journalist hypothesis of yours, Major, but there are serious objections to it too. ”

“ My father was a Higginbotham—one of the Higginbothams of Salem—but my mother, Marie Lawrence, was a far-off cousin of the wife of old Thomas Lawrence, the great tobacconist of New York. Horatio Higginbotham was both an author and an artist, but he neither wrote nor painted down to the popular taste; and as he was also a gentleman, and had lived like one, he left very little money. Not that he took it with him when he died, but he had spent it on the way. It costs considerable to get through this world, if you travel first-class and pay as you go. ”

“ Will, thy mother is fain to go live in Manchester, and covets to let the farm. Now, I'm willing to take it for Tom Higginbotham; but I like to drive a keen bargain, and there would be no fun chaffering with thy mother just now. Let thee and me buckle to, my lad! and try and cheat each other; it will warm us this cold day. ”

“ After smoking two pipes he went down again to the pier, embarked in the collapsible punt, and paddled off to the Spindrift. The Major was sound asleep in the little cabin. Meldon woke him.
"It's all right," he said. "I've put Higginbotham completely off the scent. We can go where we like and do what we like and he'll ask no questions. We're to dine with him to-night. I hope you won't mind. I promised to bring along your corned beef and some sardines. Higginbotham doesn't seem to have anything except a tinned tongue and a lobster. ”

“ But——"
"If there's anything the matter with the bed," said Mr. Willoughby severely, "Mr. Higginbotham should himself represent the facts to the proper authorities."
"You quite misunderstand me. And in any case Higginbotham can't move in the matter because he doesn't, at present, know that there's anything wrong about the bed. By the time he finds it out it will be too late to do anything. I simply want to give you a word of advice. Don't sleep in Higginbotham's bed to-night." ”

“ Then you can't be said really to know Higginbotham. That's a pity, because without a close and intimate knowledge of Higginbotham you're not in a position to understand that geological survey story. Take my advice and drop the whole subject until you know Higginbotham better. After spending a few days on the island in constant intercourse with Higginbotham you'll be able to understand the whole thing. Then you'll appreciate it. ”

“ Higginbotham severely. "And you are jealous. I can see it in your face. Here is your dear father continually talking to me with pride about the things you are doing at Cambridge, while you are only thinking of yourself, and fear that you will lose the position you have won when he is there to compete with you. What a contrast! You should be ashamed of such feelings, Lucius. I am sure I should be if I were in your place. What matter if you do have to take a lower place in the estimation of your young friends, when it is your own father—and such a father—who will replace you? ”

“ That was how we got on the subject of pliocene clay."
"Turn round," said the Major sternly, "and row back to the Spindrift. I'll up anchor and leave this place to-night! I'm not going ashore to be made a fool of by your abominable inventions."
"It's all right. You won't be made a fool of. Higginbotham will respect you all the more for being an expert. He's just the sort of man who looks up to experts. And he won't bother you with questions. I told him you were a man of violent temper and couldn't bear being worried about your work." ”

“ I'm not a feminist myself or anything extreme of any kind, but I think a man ought to show some respect to women, and not be always sneering at them as you are. After all, Major, if you hadn't had a mother where would you be now? You ought to try and remember little things like that."
"Would there be anything unchivalrous," said the Major, "in asking where Higginbotham does come in if he's not to go to sea in Sir Giles's punt?"
"It's my punt, not Sir Giles's. But we needn't argue about that. The thing's quite simple. Higginbotham is to go to Inishmore in Jamesy O'Flaherty's curragh." ”

“ Higginbotham felt that it ought to be the lot of every girl to be a blushing heroine at one time of her life. She felt that she herself had been unjustly deprived of that privilege, although she had been an attractive girl, and, if she read the expression in Peter Binney's eyes rightly, was attractive still. ”

“ The coach rumbled up to the piazza of the tavern, followed by a thousand people; for if any man had been minding his own business till then, he now left it at sixes and sevens to hear the news. The pedler, foremost in the race, discovered two passengers, both of whom had been startled from a comfortable nap to find themselves in the centre of a mob. Every man assailed them with separate questions all propounded at once. The couple were struck speechless, though one was a lawyer and the other a young lady.
“Mr. Higginbotham! Mr. Higginbotham! Tell us the particulars about old Mr. Higginbotham!” ”

“ Higginbotham should live or die.
In two or three places, underneath the flaming bills which announced the Story-Teller, was pasted a small slip of paper, giving notice, in tremulous characters, of a religious meeting to be held at the school-house, where, with divine permission, Eliakim Abbott would address sinners on the welfare of their immortal souls. ”

“ Will you——?"
"There's no use doing that," said Higginbotham. "I saw them going ashore in their punt as I came off to you."
"All the same, I'll look them up," said Meldon. "I'm sure to find them somewhere about on the island. What I want you to do is to stay here and play chess with the Major till I get back."
He winked fiercely at Major Kent as he spoke.
"I know you play, Higginbotham, for you were a member of the chess club in college. You'll enjoy having a go at the Major. He's a perfect whale at the Muzio gambit. Very few men know the ins and outs of it as he does." ”

“ The young lady, after listening to the pedler's explanation, merely seized a moment to smooth her gown and put her curls in order, and then appeared at the tavern-door, making a modest signal to be heard.
"Good people," said she, "I am Mr. Higginbotham's niece."
A wondering murmur passed through the crowd, on beholding her so rosy and bright; that same unhappy niece whom they had supposed, on the authority of the "Parker's Falls Gazette," to be lying at death's door in a fainting fit. ”

“ Is Mr. Higginbotham's niece come out of her fainting fits? Mr. Higginbotham! Mr. Higginbotham!!'
The coachman said not a word, except to swear awfully at the ostler for not bringing him a fresh team of horses. The lawyer inside had generally his wits about him even when asleep; the first thing he did, after learning the cause of the excitement, was to produce a large red pocket-book. Meantime, Dominicus Pike, being an extremely polite young man, and also suspecting that a female tongue would tell the story as glibly as a lawyer's, had handed the lady out of the coach. ”

“ He'll want to argue, and he's always in a bad temper when you first wake him. The morning will hardly see us through the job. Luckily the only person with any sort of right to interfere is Higginbotham. He's frightfully officious, and you never can tell what his Board might regard as coming under the head of mining rights. But it's easy to put Higginbotham off the scent. Do you happen to have that bag anywhere about, the one you used to take down into the cave?"
O'Flaherty rose, climbed on his stool again, and grubbed among some dirty sails and nets which hung on a beam above the hearth. ”

“ Being thus importuned, the traveller—who was as ill-looking a fellow as one would desire to meet in a solitary piece of woods—appeared to hesitate a little, as if he was either searching his memory for news, or weighing the expediency of telling it. At last mounting on the step of the cart, he whispered in the ear of Dominicus, though he might have shouted aloud and no other mortal would have heard him—
“I do remember one little trifle of news,” said he. “Old Mr. Higginbotham, of Kimballton, was murdered in his orchard, at eight o’clock last night, by an Irishman and a nigger. ”

“ He is employed by the Government at an enormous salary, no doubt, to find out all he can about this island. Naturally he either digs a hole or goes down some hole already in existence. Now, so far as we know, Thomas O'Flaherty's hole is the only one there is. Therefore it seems likely that Higginbotham went down it. If he did he found the treasure and has it now. ”

“ Six per cent--six times seven--four hundred an' twenty."
"That would be thirty-five dollars a month, wouldn't it?"
Higginbotham nodded.
"Then, if you've no objection, well arrange it this way." Martin glanced at Gertrude. "You can have the principal to keep for yourself, if you'll use the thirty-five dollars a month for cooking and washing and scrubbing. The seven thousand is yours if you'll guarantee that Gertrude does no more drudgery. Is it a go?"
Mr. Higginbotham swallowed hard. That his wife should do no more housework was an affront to his thrifty soul. ”

“ Higginbotham triumphantly. "Now you have acknowledged your baseness, Lucius. I am thoroughly ashamed of you. But you will learn that you cannot prevent your father from becoming notorious. He is bound to take the lead in whatever he takes up, especially among a lot of boys many years his juniors, and far inferior in capacity. I am afraid that in addition to your miserable jealousy, Lucius, there are things you wish to hide in your life at Cambridge, things that you do not wish your father to know of. ”