The Stoic

"Aequam memento rebus in arduis

Servare mentem:"--Horace.

In the City of Liverpool, on a January day of 1905, the Board-room of

"The Island Navigation Company" rested, as it were, after the labours of

the afternoon. The long table was still littered with the ink, pens, blottingpaper, and abandoned documents of six persons--a deserted battlefield of

the brain. And, lonely, in his chairman's seat at the top end old Sylvanus

Heythorp sat, with closed eyes, still and heavy as an image. One puffy,

feeble hand, whose fingers quivered, rested on the arm of his chair; the

thick white hair on his massive head glistened in the light from a greenshaded lamp. He was not asleep, for every now and then his sanguine

cheeks filled, and a sound, half sigh, half grunt, escaped his thick lips

between a white moustache and the tiny tuft of white hairs above his cleft

chin. Sunk in the chair, that square thick trunk of a body in short blackbraided coat seemed divested of all neck.

Young Gilbert Farney, secretary of "The Island Navigation Company,"

entering his hushed Board-room, stepped briskly to the table, gathered

some papers, and stood looking at his chairman. Not more than thirtyfive, with the bright hues of the optimist in his hair, beard, cheeks, and

eyes, he had a nose and lips which curled ironically. For, in his view, he

was the Company; and its Board did but exist to chequer his importance.

Five days in the week for seven hours a day he wrote, and thought, and

wove the threads of its business, and this lot came down once a week for

two or three hours, and taught their grandmother to suck eggs. But

watching that red-cheeked, white-haired, somnolent figure, his smile was

not so contemptuous as might have been expected. For after all, the

chairman was a wonderful old boy. A man of go and insight could not but respect him. Eighty! Half paralysed, over head and ears in debt, having

gone the pace all his life--or so they said!--till at last that mine in Ecuador

had done for him--before the secretary's day, of course, but he had heard

of it. The old chap had bought it up on spec'--"de l'audace, toujours de

l'audace," as he was so fond of saying--paid for it half in cash and half in

promises, and then--the thing had turned out empty, and left him with

L20,000 worth of the old shares unredeemed. The old boy had weathered

it out without a bankruptcy so far. Indomitable old buffer; and never

fussy like the rest of them! Young Farney, though a secretary, was

capable of attachment; and his eyes expressed a pitying affection. The

Board meeting had been long and "snadgy"--a final settling of that Pillin

business. Rum go the chairman forcing it on them like this! And with quiet

satisfaction the secretary thought 'And he never would have got it

through if I hadn't made up my mind that it really is good business!' For

to expand the company was to expand himself. Still, to buy four ships

with the freight market so depressed was a bit startling, and there would

be opposition at the general meeting. Never mind! He and the chairman

could put it through--put it through. And suddenly he saw the old man

looking at him.

Only from those eyes could one appreciate the strength of life yet flowing

underground in that well-nigh helpless carcase--deep-coloured little blue

wells, tiny, jovial, round windows.

A sigh travelled up through layers of flesh, and he said almost inaudibly:

"Have they come, Mr. Farney?"

"Yes, sir. I've put them in the transfer office; said you'd be with them in a

minute; but I wasn't going to wake you."

"Haven't been asleep. Help me up."

Grasping the edge of the table with his trembling hands, the old man

pulled, and, with Farney heaving him behind, attained his feet. He stood

about five feet ten, and weighed fully fourteen stone; not corpulent, but

very thick all through; his round and massive head alone would have

outweighed a baby. With eyes shut, he seemed to be trying to get the