Youth Challenges. Clarence Budington Kelland

studied his own conduct, but could convince himself of no voluntary wrongdoing. Yet he was in a cell. … In the beginning he had merely tried to understand something that aroused his curiosity—labor. From the point of view of capital, as represented by his father, this had been a sin. How or why it was a sin he could not comprehend. … Labor had been willing to be friendly, but now it hated him. Orders given in his name, but not originating in his will, had caused this. His attitude became fatalistic—he was being moved about by a ruthless hand without regard to his own volition. He might as well close his eyes and his mind and submit, for Bonbright Foote VII did not exist as a rational human individual, but only as a checker on the board, to be moved from square to square with such success or error as the player possessed.

      Last night. … He had been mishandled by the employees of capital and the guardians of society; he had been mobbed by labor. He resented the guard and the police, but could not resent the mobbing. … He seemed to be dangling between two worlds, mishandled by either that he approached. But one fact he realized—labor would have none of him. His father had seen to that. There was no place for him to go but into the refuge of capital, and so to become an enemy to labor against which he had no quarrel. … This night set him more deeply in the Bonbright Foote groove. There was nothing for him now but complete submission, apathetic submission.

      If it must be so, it must be so. He would let the family current bear him on. He would be but another Bonbright Foote, differentiated from the others only by a numeral to designate his generation.

      Singularly, his own immediate problem did not present itself insistently until daylight began to penetrate the murk of the cell. What would the authorities do with him? How was he to get his liberty? Would the thing become public? He felt his helplessness, his inadequacy. He could not ask his father to help him, for he did not want his father ever to know what had happened the night before, yet he must have help from some one. Suddenly the name of Malcolm Lightener occurred to him.

      After a time the doorman appeared with breakfast.

      "Can I send a message?" asked Bonbright.

      The doorman scrutinized him, saw he was no bum of the streets, but quite evidently a gentleman in temporary difficulty.

      "Maybe," he said, grudgingly. "Gimme the message and I'll see."

      "Please telephone Mr. Malcolm Lightener that the younger of the gentlemen he called on last evening is here and would like to see him."

      "Malcolm Lightener, the automobile feller?"

      "Yes."

      "Friend of your'n?"

      "Yes."

      "Um! … " The doorman disappeared to return presently with the lieutenant.

      "What's this about Malcolm Lightener?" the officer asked.

      "I gave the man here a message for him," said Bonbright.

      "Is it on the level? You know Lightener?"

      "Yes," said Bonbright, impatiently.

      "Then what the devil did you stay here all night for? Why didn't you have him notified last night? Looks darn fishy to me."

      "It will do no harm to deliver my message," said Bonbright.

      "Huh! … Let him out." The doorman swung wide the barred door and the lieutenant motioned Bonbright out. "Come and set in the office," he said. "Maybe you'd rather telephone yourself?"

      "If I might," said Bonbright, amazed at the potency of Lightener's name to open cell doors and command the courtesy of the police. It was his first encounter with Influence.

      He was conducted into a small office; then the lieutenant retired discreetly and shut the door. Bonbright made his call and asked for speech with Malcolm Lightener.

      "Hello! … Hello!" came Lightener's gruff voice. "What is it?"

      "This is Bonbright Foote. … I'm locked up in the Central Station. I wonder if you can't help me somehow?"

      There was a moment's silence; then Bonbright heard a remark not intended for his ears but expressive of Lightener's astonishment, "Well, I'm DARNED!" Then: "I'll be right there. Hold the fort."

      Bonbright opened the door and said to the lieutenant, "Mr. Lightener's on his way down."

      "Um! … Make yourself comfortable. Say, was that breakfast all right?

       Find cigars in that top drawer." The magic of Influence!

      In twenty minutes Lightener's huge form pushed through the station door. "Morning, Lieutenant. Got a friend of mine here?"

      "Didn't know he was a friend of yours, Mr. Lightener. He wouldn't give his name, and never asked to have you notified till this morning. … He's in my office there."

      Lightener strode into the room and shut the door.

      "Well?" he demanded.

      Breathlessly, almost without pause, Bonbright poured upon him an account of last night's happenings, making no concealments, unconsciously giving Lightener glimpses into his heart that made the big man bend his brows ominously. The boy did not explain; did not mention accusingly his father, but Lightener understood perfectly what the process of molding Bonbright was being subjected to. He made no comment.

      "I don't want father to know this," Bonbright said. "If it can be kept out of the papers. … Father wouldn't understand. He'd feel I had disgraced the family."

      "Doggone the family," snapped Lightener. "Come on."

      Bonbright followed him out.

      "May I take him along, Lieutenant? I'll fix it with the judge if necessary. … And say, happen to recognize him?"

      "Never saw him before."

      "If any of the newspaper boys come snoopin' around, you never saw me, either. Much obliged, Lieutenant."

      "You're welcome, Mr. Lightener. Glad I kin accommodate you."

      Lightener pushed Bonbright into his limousine. "You don't want to go home, I guess. We'll go to my house. Mother'll see you get breakfast. … Then we'll have a talk. … Here's a paper boy; let's see what's doing."

      It was the morning penny paper that Lightener bought, the paper with leanings toward the proletariat, the veiled champion of labor. He bought it daily.

      "Huh!" he grunted, as he scanned the first page. "They kind of allude to you."

      Bonbright looked. He saw a two-column head:

      YOUNG MILLIONAIRE URGES ON POLICE

      The next pyramid contained his name; the story related how he had rushed frantically to the police after they had barbarously charged a harmless gathering of workingmen, trampling and maiming half a dozen, and had demanded that they charge again. It was a long story, with infinite detail, crucifying him with cheap ink; making him appear a ruthless, heartless monster, lusting for the spilled blood of the innocent.

      Bonbright looked up to meet Lightener's eyes.

      "It—it isn't fair," he said, chokingly.

      "Fairness," said Lightener, almost with gentleness, "is expected only when we are young."

      "But I didn't. … I tried to stop them."

      "Don't try to tell anybody so—you won't be believed."

      "I'm going to tell somebody," said Bonbright, his mind flashing to Ruth

       Frazer, "and I'm going to be believed. I've got to be believed."

      After a while he said: "I wasn't taking sides. I just went there to see. If I've got to hire men all my life I want to understand them."

      "You've got to take sides, son. There's no straddling the fence in this world. … And as soon as you've taken sides your own side is all you'll understand.