Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Empire Builders by Francis Lynde
page 38 of 336 (11%)

The number proved to be a ground floor, with the business office of the
eastern traffic representative in front, and three or four private
desk-rooms in the rear, one of them labeled "President" in inconspicuous
gilt lettering. Entering, with less assurance than if he had been the
humblest of place-seekers out of a job, Ford was almost relieved to find
only a closed desk, and a young man absently scanning a morning paper.

Inquiry developed a few facts, tersely stated but none the less
enlightening. Mr. Colbrith was not in: the office was merely his nominal
headquarters in the city and he occupied it only occasionally. His
residence? It was in the Borough of the Bronx, pretty well up toward
Yonkers--locality and means of access obligingly written out on a card
for the caller by the clerk. Was Mr. Ford's business of a routine
nature? If so, perhaps, Mr. Ten Eyck, the general agent, could attend to
it. Ford said it was not of a routine nature, and made his escape to
inquire his way to the nearest subway station. To pause now was to lose
the precious impetus of the start.

It was worth something to be whirled away blindly out of the stifling
human vortex of the lower city; but Ford's first glimpse of the Colbrith
mansion depressed him again. The huge, formal house had once been the
country residence of a retired dry-goods merchant. It fronted the river
brazenly, and the fine old trees of a ten-acre park shamed its
architectural stiffness. Ford knew the president a little by family
repute and more particularly as a young subordinate knows the general in
command. It struck him forcibly that the aspect of the house fitted the
man. With the broad river and the distant Palisades to be dwelt upon,
its outlook windows were narrow. With the sloping park and the great
trees to give it dignity, it seemed to assume an artificial, plumb-line
DigitalOcean Referral Badge