The Turmoil, Booth Tarkington [best english novels for beginners .txt] 📗

Sheridan looked sarcastic. “Fine! What we goin’ to do for storage-rooms while we’re waitin’ for those few bricks to be laid?”

“Rent,” Bibbs returned, promptly. “We’ll lose money if we don’t rent, anyhow⁠—they were waiting so long for you to give the warehouse matter your attention after the roof fell. You don’t know what an amount of stuff they’ve got piled up on us over there. We’d have to rent until we could patch up those process perils⁠—and the Krivitch Manufacturing Company’s plant is empty, right across the street. I took an option on it for us this morning.”

Sheridan’s expression was queer. “Look here!” he said, sharply. “Did you go and do that without consulting me?”

“It didn’t cost anything,” said Bibbs. “It’s only until tomorrow afternoon at two o’clock. I undertook to convince you before then.”

“Oh, you did?” Sheridan’s tone was sardonic. “Well, just suppose you couldn’t convince me.”

“I can, though⁠—and I intend to,” said Bibbs, quietly. “I don’t think you understand the condition of those buildings you want patched up.”

“Now, see here,” said Sheridan, with slow emphasis; “suppose I had my mind set about this. Jim thought they’d stand, and suppose it was⁠—well, kind of a matter of sentiment with me to prove he was right.”

Bibbs looked at him compassionately. “I’m sorry if you have a sentiment about it, father,” he said. “But whether you have or not can’t make a difference. You’ll get other people hurt if you trust that process, and that won’t do. And if you want a monument to Jim, at least you want one that will stand. Besides, I don’t think you can reasonably defend sentiment in this particular kind of affair.”

“Oh, you don’t?”

“No, but I’m sorry you didn’t tell me you felt it.”

Sheridan was puzzled by his son’s tone. “Why are you ‘sorry’?” he asked, curiously.

“Because I had the building inspector up there, this noon,” said Bibbs, “and I had him condemn both those buildings.”

“What?”

“He’d been afraid to do it before, until he heard from us⁠—afraid you’d see he lost his job. But he can’t un-condemn them⁠—they’ve got to come down now.”

Sheridan gave him a long and piercing stare from beneath lowered brows. Finally he said, “How long did they give you on that option to convince me?”

“Until two o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”

“All right,” said Sheridan, not relaxing. “I’m convinced.”

Bibbs jumped up. “I thought you would be. I’ll telephone the Krivitch agent. He gave me the option until tomorrow, but I told him I’d settle it this evening.”

Sheridan gazed after him as he left the room, and then, though his expression did not alter in the slightest, a sound came from him that startled his wife. It had been a long time since she had heard anything resembling a chuckle from him, and this sound⁠—although it was grim and dry⁠—bore that resemblance.

She brightened eagerly. “Looks like he was startin’ right well don’t it, papa?”

“Startin’? Lord! He got me on the hip! Why, he knew what I wanted⁠—that’s why he had the inspector up there, so’t he’d have me beat before we even started to talk about it. And did you hear him? ‘Can’t reasonably defend sentiment!’ And the way he says ‘Us’: ‘Took an option for Us’! ‘Stuff piled up on Us’!”

There was always an alloy for Mrs. Sheridan. “I don’t just like the way he looks, though, papa.”

“Oh, there’s got to be something! Only one chick left at home, so you start to frettin’ about it!”

“No. He’s changed. There’s kind of a settish look to his face, and⁠—”

“I guess that’s the common sense comin’ out on him, then,” said Sheridan. “You’ll see symptoms like that in a good many business men, I expect.”

“Well, and he don’t have as good color as he was gettin’ before. And he’d begun to fill out some, but⁠—”

Sheridan gave forth another dry chuckle, and, going round the table to her, patted her upon the shoulder with his left hand, his right being still heavily bandaged, though he no longer wore a sling. “That’s the way it is with you, mamma⁠—got to take your frettin’ out one way if you don’t another!”

“No. He don’t look well. It ain’t exactly the way he looked when he begun to get sick that time, but he kind o’ seems to be losin’, some way.”

“Yes, he may ’a’ lost something,” said Sheridan. “I expect he’s lost a whole lot o’ foolishness besides his Godforsaken notions about writin’ poetry and⁠—”

“No,” his wife persisted. “I mean he looks right peakid. And yesterday, when he was settin’ with us, he kept lookin’ out the window. He wasn’t readin’.”

“Well, why shouldn’t he look out the window?”

“He was lookin’ over there. He never read a word all afternoon, I don’t believe.”

“Look, here!” said Sheridan. “Bibbs might ’a’ kept goin’ on over there the rest of his life, moonin’ on and on, but what he heard Sibyl say did one big thing, anyway. It woke him up out of his trance. Well, he had to go and bust clean out with a bang; and that stopped his goin’ over there, and it stopped his poetry, but I reckon he’s begun to get pretty fair pay for what he lost. I guess a good many young men have had to get over worries like his; they got to lose something if they’re goin’ to keep ahead o’ the procession nowadays⁠—and it kind o’ looks to me, mamma, like Bibbs might keep quite a considerable long way ahead. Why, a year from now I’ll bet you he won’t know there ever was such a thing as poetry! And ain’t he funny? He wanted to stick to the shop so’s he could ‘think’! What he meant was, think about something useless. Well, I guess he’s keepin’ his mind pretty occupied the other way these days. Yes, sir, it took a pretty fair-sized shock to get him out of his trance, but it certainly did the business.” He patted his wife’s shoulder again, and then, without any prefatory symptoms, broke