He settled down in St. Francis Hotel, was interviewed by the cub-reporters on the hotel-run, and received brief paragraphs of notice for twenty-four hours. He grinned to himself, and began to look around and get acquainted with the new order of beings and things. He was very awkward and very self-possessed3. In addition to the stiffening4 afforded his backbone5 by the conscious ownership of eleven millions, he possessed an enormous certitude.
Nothing abashed6 him, nor was he appalled7 by the display and culture and power around him. It was another kind of wilderness8, that was all; and it was for him to learn the ways of it, the signs and trails and water-holes where good hunting lay, and the bad stretches of field and flood to be avoided. As usual, he fought shy of the women. He was still too badly scared to come to close quarters with the dazzling and resplendent creatures his own millions made accessible.
They looked and longed, but he so concealed9 his timidity that he had all the seeming of moving boldly among them. Nor was it his wealth alone that attracted them. He was too much a man, and too much an unusual type of man. Young yet, barely thirty-six, eminently10 handsome, magnificently strong, almost bursting with a splendid virility11, his free trail-stride, never learned on pavements, and his black eyes, hinting of great spaces and unwearied with the close perspective of the city dwellers12, drew many a curious and wayward feminine glance. He saw, grinned knowingly to himself, and faced them as so many dangers, with a cool demeanor13 that was a far greater personal achievement than had they been famine, frost, or flood.
He had come down to the States to play the man's game, not the woman's game; and the men he had not yet learned. They struck him as soft—soft physically14; yet he divined them hard in their dealings, but hard under an exterior16 of supple17 softness. It struck him that there was something cat-like about them. He met them in the clubs, and wondered how real was the good-fellowship they displayed and how quickly they would unsheathe their claws and gouge18 and rend19. "That's the proposition," he repeated to himself; "what will they-all do when the play is close and down to brass20 tacks21?" He felt unwarrantably suspicious of them. "They're sure slick," was his secret judgment22; and from bits of gossip dropped now and again he felt his judgment well buttressed23. On the other hand, they radiated an atmosphere of manliness24 and the fair play that goes with manliness. They might gouge and rend in a fight—which was no more than natural; but he felt, somehow, that they would gouge and rend according to rule. This was the impression he got of them—a generalization25 tempered by knowledge that there was bound to be a certain percentage of scoundrels among them.
Several months passed in San Francisco during which time he studied the game and its rules, and prepared himself to take a hand. He even took private instruction in English, and succeeded in eliminating his worst faults, though in moments of excitement he was prone26 to lapse27 into "you-all," "knowed," "sure," and similar solecisms. He learned to eat and dress and generally comport28 himself after the manner of civilized29 man; but through it all he remained himself, not unduly30 reverential nor considerative, and never hesitating to stride rough-shod over any soft-faced convention if it got in his way and the provocation31 were great enough. Also, and unlike the average run of weaker men coming from back countries and far places, he failed to reverence32 the particular tin gods worshipped variously by the civilized tribes of men. He had seen totems before, and knew them for what they were.
Tiring of being merely an onlooker33, he ran up to Nevada, where the new gold-mining boom was fairly started—"just to try a flutter," as he phrased it to himself. The flutter on the Tonopah Stock Exchange lasted just ten days, during which time his smashing, wild-bull game played ducks and drakes with the more stereotyped34 gamblers, and at the end of which time, having gambled Floridel into his fist, he let go for a net profit of half a million. Whereupon, smacking35 his lips, he departed for San Francisco and the St. Francis Hotel. It tasted good, and his hunger for the game became more acute.
And once more the papers sensationalized him. BURNING DAYLIGHT was a big-letter headline again. Interviewers flocked about him.
Old files of magazines and newspapers were searched through, and the romantic and historic Elam Harnish, Adventurer of the Frost, King of the Klondike, and father of the Sourdoughs, strode upon the breakfast table of a million homes along with the toast and breakfast foods. Even before his elected time, he was forcibly launched into the game. Financiers and promoters, and all the flotsam and jetsam of the sea of speculation36 surged upon the shores of his eleven millions. In self-defence he was compelled to open offices. He had made them sit up and take notice, and now, willy-nilly, they were dealing15 him hands and clamoring for him to play. Well, play he would; he'd show 'em; even despite the elated prophesies37 made of how swiftly he would be trimmed—prophesies coupled with descriptions of the bucolic38 game he would play and of his wild and woolly appearance.
He dabbled39 in little things at first—"stalling for time," as he explained it to Holdsworthy, a friend he had made at the Alta-Pacific Club. Daylight himself was a member of the club, and Holdsworthy had proposed him. And it was well that Daylight played closely at first, for he was astounded40 by the multitudes of sharks—"ground-sharks," he called them—that flocked about him.
He saw through their schemes readily enough, and even marveled that such numbers of them could find sufficient prey41 to keep them going. Their rascality42 and general dubiousness43 was so transparent44 that he could not understand how any one could be taken in by them.
And then he found that there were sharks and sharks. Holdsworthy treated him more like a brother than a mere2 fellow-clubman, watching over him, advising him, and introducing him to the magnates of the local financial world. Holdsworthy's family lived in a delightful45 bungalow46 near Menlo Park, and here Daylight spent a number of weekends, seeing a fineness and kindness of home life of which he had never dreamed. Holdsworthy was an enthusiast47 over flowers, and a half lunatic over raising prize poultry48; and these engrossing49 madnesses were a source of perpetual joy to Daylight, who looked on in tolerant good humor. Such amiable50 weaknesses tokened the healthfulness of the man, and drew Daylight closer to him. A prosperous, successful business man without great ambition, was Daylight's estimate of him—a man too easily satisfied with the small stakes of the game ever to launch out in big play.
On one such week-end visit, Holdsworthy let him in on a good thing, a good little thing, a brickyard at Glen Ellen. Daylight listened closely to the other's description of the situation. It was a most reasonable venture, and Daylight's one objection was that it was so small a matter and so far out of his line; and he went into it only as a matter of friendship, Holdsworthy explaining that he was himself already in a bit, and that while it was a good thing, he would be compelled to make sacrifices in other directions in order to develop it. Daylight advanced the capital, fifty thousand dollars, and, as he laughingly explained afterward51, "I was stung, all right, but it wasn't Holdsworthy that did it half as much as those blamed chickens and fruit-trees of his."
It was a good lesson, however, for he learned that there were few faiths in the business world, and that even the simple, homely52 faith of breaking bread and eating salt counted for little in the face of a worthless brickyard and fifty thousand dollars in cash.
But the sharks and sharks of various orders and degrees, he concluded, were on the surface. Deep down, he divined, were the integrities and the stabilities. These big captains of industry and masters of finance, he decided53, were the men to work with. By the very nature of their huge deals and enterprises they had to play fair. No room there for little sharpers' tricks and bunco games. It was to be expected that little men should salt gold-mines with a shotgun and work off worthless brick-yards on their friends, but in high finance such methods were not worth while. There the men were engaged in developing the country, organizing its railroads, opening up its mines, making accessible its vast natural resources. Their play was bound to be big and stable. "They sure can't afford tin-horn tactics," was his summing up.
So it was that he resolved to leave the little men, the Holdsworthys, alone; and, while he met them in good-fellowship, he chummed with none, and formed no deep friendships. He did not dislike the little men, the men of the Alta-Pacific, for instance. He merely did not elect to choose them for partners in the big game in which he intended to play. What that big game was, even he did not know. He was waiting to find it. And in the meantime he played small hands, investing in several arid-lands reclamation55 projects and keeping his eyes open for the big chance when it should come along.
And then he met John Dowsett, the great John Dowsett. The whole thing was fortuitous. This cannot be doubted, as Daylight himself knew, it was by the merest chance, when in Los Angeles, that he heard the tuna were running strong at Santa Catalina, and went over to the island instead of returning directly to San Francisco as he had planned. There he met John Dowsett, resting off for several days in the middle of a flying western trip. Dowsett had of course heard of the spectacular Klondike King and his rumored56 thirty millions, and he certainly found himself interested by the man in the acquaintance that was formed. Somewhere along in this acquaintanceship the idea must have popped into his brain. But he did not broach57 it, preferring to mature it carefully. So he talked in large general ways, and did his best to be agreeable and win Daylight's friendship.
It was the first big magnate Daylight had met face to face, and he was pleased and charmed. There was such a kindly58 humanness about the man, such a genial59 democraticness, that Daylight found it hard to realize that this was THE John Dowsett, president of a string of banks, insurance manipulator, reputed ally of the lieutenants60 of Standard Oil, and known ally of the Guggenhammers.
Physically, he guaranteed all that Daylight knew of him. Despite his sixty years and snow-white hair, his hand-shake was firmly hearty62, and he showed no signs of decrepitude63, walking with a quick, snappy step, making all movements definitely and decisively. His skin was a healthy pink, and his thin, clean lips knew the way to writhe64 heartily65 over a joke. He had honest blue eyes of palest blue; they looked out at one keenly and frankly66 from under shaggy gray brows. His mind showed itself disciplined and orderly, and its workings struck Daylight as having all the certitude of a steel trap. He was a man who KNEW and who never decorated his knowledge with foolish frills of sentiment or emotion. That he was accustomed to command was patent, and every word and gesture tingled67 with power. Combined with this was his sympathy and tact54, and Daylight could note easily enough all the earmarks that distinguished68 him from a little man of the Holdsworthy caliber69. Daylight knew also his history, the prime old American stock from which he had descended70, his own war record, the John Dowsett before him who had been one of the banking71 buttresses72 of the Cause of the union, the Commodore Dowsett of the War of 1812 the General Dowsett of Revolutionary fame, and that first far Dowsett, owner of lands and slaves in early New England.
"He's sure the real thing," he told one of his fellow-clubmen afterwards, in the smoking-room of the Alta-Pacific. "I tell you, Gallon, he was a genuine surprise to me. I knew the big ones had to be like that, but I had to see him to really know it. He's one of the fellows that does things. You can see it sticking out all over him. He's one in a thousand, that's straight, a man to tie to. There's no limit to any game he plays, and you can stack on it that he plays right up to the handle. I bet he can lose or win half a dozen million without batting an eye."
Gallon puffed73 at his cigar, and at the conclusion of the panegyric74 regarded the other curiously75; but Daylight, ordering cocktails76, failed to note this curious stare.
"Going in with him on some deal, I suppose," Gallon remarked.
"Nope, not the slightest idea. Here's kindness. I was just explaining that I'd come to understand how these big fellows do big things. Why, d'ye know, he gave me such a feeling that he knew everything, that I was plumb77 ashamed of myself."
"I guess I could give him cards and spades when it comes to driving a dog-team, though," Daylight observed, after a meditative78 pause. "And I really believe I could put him on to a few wrinkles in poker79 and placer mining, and maybe in paddling a birch canoe. And maybe I stand a better chance to learn the game he's been playing all his life than he would stand of learning the game I played up North."
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1
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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stiffening
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| n. (使衣服等)变硬的材料, 硬化 动词stiffen的现在分词形式 | |
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backbone
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| n.脊骨，脊柱，骨干；刚毅，骨气 | |
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abashed
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| adj.窘迫的，尴尬的v.使羞愧，使局促，使窘迫( abash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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appalled
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| v.使惊骇，使充满恐惧( appall的过去式和过去分词)adj.惊骇的；丧胆的 | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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virility
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| n.雄劲，丈夫气 | |
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dwellers
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| n.居民，居住者( dweller的名词复数 ) | |
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demeanor
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| n.行为；风度 | |
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physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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exterior
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| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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supple
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| adj.柔软的，易弯的，逢迎的，顺从的，灵活的；vt.使柔软，使柔顺，使顺从；vi.变柔软，变柔顺 | |
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gouge
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| v.凿；挖出；n.半圆凿；凿孔；欺诈 | |
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rend
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| vt.把…撕开，割裂；把…揪下来，强行夺取 | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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tacks
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| 大头钉( tack的名词复数 )； 平头钉； 航向； 方法 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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buttressed
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| v.用扶壁支撑，加固( buttress的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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24
manliness
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| 刚毅 | |
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generalization
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| n.普遍性，一般性，概括 | |
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prone
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| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
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lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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comport
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| vi.相称，适合 | |
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civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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unduly
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| adv.过度地，不适当地 | |
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provocation
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| n.激怒，刺激，挑拨，挑衅的事物，激怒的原因 | |
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reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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onlooker
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| n.旁观者，观众 | |
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stereotyped
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| adj.(指形象、思想、人物等)模式化的 | |
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smacking
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| 活泼的，发出响声的，精力充沛的 | |
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speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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prophesies
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| v.预告，预言( prophesy的第三人称单数 ) | |
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bucolic
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| adj.乡村的；牧羊的 | |
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dabbled
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| v.涉猎( dabble的过去式和过去分词 )；涉足；浅尝；少量投资 | |
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astounded
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| v.使震惊(astound的过去式和过去分词)；愕然；愕；惊讶 | |
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prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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rascality
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| 流氓性，流氓集团 | |
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dubiousness
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| n.dubious（令人怀疑的）的变形 | |
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transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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bungalow
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| n.平房，周围有阳台的木造小平房 | |
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enthusiast
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| n.热心人，热衷者 | |
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poultry
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| n.家禽，禽肉 | |
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engrossing
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| adj.使人全神贯注的，引人入胜的v.使全神贯注( engross的现在分词 ) | |
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50
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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51
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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52
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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53
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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54
tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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55
reclamation
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| n.开垦；改造；（废料等的）回收 | |
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56
rumored
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| adj.传说的，谣传的v.传闻( rumor的过去式和过去分词 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷 | |
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57
broach
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| v.开瓶，提出(题目) | |
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58
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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60
lieutenants
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| n.陆军中尉( lieutenant的名词复数 )；副职官员；空军；仅低于…官阶的官员 | |
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61
belie
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| v.掩饰，证明为假 | |
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62
hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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63
decrepitude
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| n.衰老；破旧 | |
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64
writhe
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| vt.挣扎，痛苦地扭曲；vi.扭曲，翻腾，受苦；n.翻腾，苦恼 | |
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65
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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66
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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67
tingled
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| v.有刺痛感( tingle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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68
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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69
caliber
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| n.能力；水准 | |
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70
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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71
banking
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| n.银行业，银行学，金融业 | |
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72
buttresses
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| n.扶壁，扶垛( buttress的名词复数 )v.用扶壁支撑，加固( buttress的第三人称单数 ) | |
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73
puffed
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| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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74
panegyric
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| n.颂词，颂扬 | |
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75
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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76
cocktails
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| n.鸡尾酒( cocktail的名词复数 )；餐前开胃菜；混合物 | |
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77
plumb
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| adv.精确地，完全地；v.了解意义，测水深 | |
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meditative
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| adj.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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79
poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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