He wanted to see a Man, but feared the strange creature
might be dangerous.
“Richard Wade,” says Churm. They
did not know him. The name sounded forcible.
“He has been in California,” the nominator
said.
A shudder ran around the green table. They seemed
to see a frowzy desperado, shaggy as a bison, in a
red shirt and jackboots, hung about the waist with
an assortment of six-shooters and bowie-knives, and
standing against a background of mustangs, monte-banks,
and lynch-law.
“We must get Wade,” Churm says, with authority.
“He knows Iron by heart. He can handle
Men. I will back him with my blank check, to any
amount, to his order.”
Here a murmur of applause, swelling to a cheer, burst
from the Directors.
Everybody knew that the Geological Bank deemed Churm’s
deposits the fundamental stratum of its wealth.
They lay there in the vaults, like underlying granite.
When hot times came, they boiled up in a mountain to
buttress the world.
Churm’s blank check seemed to wave in the air
like an oriflamme of victory. Its payee might
come from Botany Bay; he might wear his beard to his
knees, and his belt stuck full of howitzers and boomerangs;
he might have been repeatedly hung by Vigilance Committees,
and as often cut down and revived by galvanism; but
brandishing that check, good for anything less than
a million, every Director in Wall Street was his slave,
his friend, and his brother.
“Let us vote Mr. Wade in by acclamation,”
cried the Directors.
“But, gentlemen,” Churm interposed, “if
I give him my blank check, he must have carte blanche,
and no one to interfere in his management.”
Every Director, from President Brummage down, drew
a long face at this condition.
It was one of their great privileges to potter in
the Dunderbunk affairs and propose ludicrous impossibilities.
“Just as you please,” Churm continued.
“I name a competent man, a gentleman and fine
fellow. I back him with all the cash he wants.
But he must have his own way. Now take him, or
leave him!”
Such despotic talk had never been heard before in
that Directors’ Room. They relucted a moment.
But they thought of their togas of advertisements
in danger. The blank check shook its blandishments
before their eyes.
“We take him,” they said, and Richard
Wade was the new Superintendent unanimously.
“He shall be at Dunderbunk to take hold to-morrow
morning,” said Churm, and went off to notify
him.
Upon this, Consternation sailed out of the hearts
of Brummage and associates.
They lunched with good appetites over the green table,
and the President confidently remarked,—
“I don’t believe there is going much of
a crisis, after all.”
BARRACKS FOR THE HERO.
Wade packed his kit, and took the Hudson-River train
for Dunderbunk the same afternoon.
