A Fortune for a Fish-Line.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVI, Issue VI, 9 February 1901, Page 271

A Fortune for a Fish-Line.

When Thomas Proctbr entered my office one October morning, ten years ago, I little thought the day would prove to be the most eventful in the lives of three men.

I had aided Proctor financially in Several promising business ventures, and they all wound up in disaster, which was not due to any mismanagement on his part, but to a combination of unfortunate circumstances.

After the last collapse Proctor obtained a situation at a salary which barely supported his family. This went on for about two years, when his employer failed, and Tom was again stranded. He had been without employment about a month when he called at my office that October morning.

1 gave him some advice and encouragement, and what to him was more substantia], some dollars to relieve his immediate necessities.

Proctor expressed his gratitude in his blunt, homely fashion, and added earnestly, “Perhaps this is the turning of the tide, Mr Burrows,” and I replied, “I hope so, with all my heart.”

At that time I was director in a large transportation company, and thinking possibly I might secure a position there for my young friend, we started on a search at once.

On the way down we stopped at a wholesale house te buy a. hammock to send to a friend in Florida. The clerk informed us that as the ■hammock season was over, all their stock had been packed away on the top floor, so we ascended to the fifth floor in the elevator, and then climbed two flights of stairs, entering a room occupying the whole area of the building. A clerk was busily engaged with a gentleman whom I recognised as Hom Moses Oglethorpe, multimillionaire, therichest man in the State. ./. e c l®rk went downstairs for something, leaving us alone —a millionaire, ® merchant, ana -a powr nm. Suddenly we were startled by the gauging of gongs and a commotion fa the street.

We all rushed to the window, drawn thither by natural desire inherent in the breast of the average Americaa to witness the rush of the fireen glees. “Great Scott! gentlemen!” exclaimed Tom excitedly, “the fire is in the building. I smell smoke! We must get out!” We all rushed to the door, Proctor reaching it first. Aa he swung it open he was driven back by a sheet of flame and smoke.

“No chance to escape by the stairs,” said he; “perhaps there is a fire escape; you stay here while I take a look,” and with that he ran to the front side, and rear windows. When he rejoined our little group, the answer was plainly written on hia face, “No fire escape anywhere on the building.”

In that time of awful peril and danger, Tom Proctor was cool and collected, so we naturally looked to him to find some avenue of escape. Ten minutes before he was the most insignificant person in the room, a penniless bankrupt, realising his own insignificance more keenly because of the presence of the modern Croesus. A few moments had changed the standing of the two extremes of out trio, and Proctor had jumped to the head of the class, for we were in a situation where brains were of more account than dollars.

He examined the room, hoping to find a skylight, but was unsuccessful. Then he sought the windows again, thinking he might discover a coping or cornice by which he could reach some adjoining building, but with the same hopeless result.

Then we ran to the windows to see if there was any chance of help from the firemen. A cry of horror reached our ears as the crowd in the street caught sight of us. The firemen raised ladders against the side of the building, but our hearts sank, for the ladders reached only the window of the fourth floor. One cry reached our ears, but it sounded like a death sentence. Some one, evidently a fire chief, roared through a trumpet, “Jump! it’s your only chance!” at the same time pointing to a group of men holding a large blanket directly beneath us. “My God!” groaned Oglethorpe, “it’s suicide to jump from this height. It makes me dizzy to think of it.” Proctor was as cool as the proverbial cucumber, and he talked to us as calmly as if discussing a business schema in my private office. “It’s a case of roast or jump,” said he; “that’s the whole thing in a nutshell. My case is much worse than yours, gentlemen. Your families will he provided for, but God only knows what will become of my wife and children when I’m gone.” “See here, young man,” Oglethorpe exclaimed, grasping Tom by the arm, “I can’t be roasted here like a rat, and to jump is worse. God, man, isn’t there some escape? Why, man alive, I’d give a million dollars to be landed safely on the ground.” As he spoke he emphasised his words by shaking Proctor’s arm, staring into his face with a fierce, desperate expression. I glanced at Tom—for the instant forgetting our perilous situation —and noted that, unmindful of Oglethorpe, he was gazing intently to one side; then suddenly his face lighted up with a gleam of hope. Turning quickly to the millionaire, he exclaimed. “Do you make that as a bonafide offer, Mr Oglethrope?” “Certainly I do.” “All right! I accept the contract. No time now for any business formalities. Shake hands on it. You witness this. Mr Burrows,” said he, nodding his head in my direction, at the same time extending his hand to Oglethorpe. They hastily grasped each other’s hand, and I bore witness of the strangest transaction on record. Pushing the millionaire aside roughly, Proctor ran to a case of drawers under the counter a few feet away. On the upper drawer was tacked a white card which bore the simple legend, “Fish lines.” Tt was only the work of a second to pull the drawer out and select a heavy, strong line, about the size used in cod-fishing. The drawer underneath was labelled

“Sinkers,” and from this he grabbed a lead sinker, which he deftly fastened to the end ef the line. From the wall he tore down a sign which read, “No smoking allowed”; on the back of this card he wrote in plain letters, “Hitch ba a rope ’crnickly r”

Making the card fast to the Use near the lead, he rushed to the window, followed by Oglethorpe and myself.

We watched the deseent of that white messenger with breathless interest, for our lives were in the balance, and time was precious. Three souls hanging to a cod line and a piece of everyday cardboard! -

A man on the ladder seized the card and read its message. Waving hia hand upward to signify that he understood, he ran nimbly down the ladder, darted across the street to a ladder truck, and with the help of a comrade seized a coil of rope, which they flung on the ground directly under our window. Fastening the end of the rope to his belt, the hoseman climbed to where the end of our precious codline was swinging to and fro. Proctor leaned far outward, and carefully obeyed the command to “haul.” He was in a happy mood, probably from the fact that he was earning 1,000,000 dollars, and also that he was working for his own dear life, and ours, too.

This is a kind of fish worth fishing for,” cried he, with enthusiasm; “sort of gold-fish, hey. Mr Oglethorpe?”

I believe that Tom had been to sea a cbuple of voyages when a youngster, and evidently the old sailor instinct returned the moment he got hold of that rope.

When the last fathom fell at our feet Tom grabbed it, and With a quick turn of the hands tied a loop, which I think sailors call a “bow line-” Slipping this bow line over Mr Oglethorpe’s head and down to his hips, he said to him tersely, “Now, then, Mr Oglethorpe, you're to sit in this bow line; hold on to the rope with a death grip. Don’t be afraid; you can’t fall out of it if you try. Mr Burrows and I will lower you down, and all you have to do is to keep yourself away from the building with your feet. Yon may bark your shins, but that's nothing. Lively, now! There’s not a moment to lose!” Even then the millionaire hesitated. The prospect of dangling from a seven storey window on the eud of a rope appalled him. Proctor almost dragged him to the window, and after a few more instructions and no little urging the man of money laboriously crawled over the sill. We slacked away on the rope, and his head dis- * appeared from view. We had a turn of the rope round a steam pipe, and had no difficulty in holding his weight. Presently we heard a tremendous cheer from the crowd below,which told us that Oglethorpe was safe. Running to the window we saw him descending the ladder with the help of a fireman. Tom hauled up the rope again, and in an instant I was ready to descend. His instructions to me were the same as to Oglethorpe, only he added: “If I don’t get out of this alive, Mr Burrows, you see that Bessie and the babies get that million. He glanced over his shoulder to the rear of the room, where the flames were just beginning to break through. I made a protest—and meant it, too —that it was only right that he should go next. The rope was his idea, and he ought to reap the benefit and save himself before it was too late.

He replied almost angrily: “Stop your nonsense, Mr Burrows, and get out of that window. I’ll take two turns around this steam pipe, so as to hold you all right, and you’ll be on the ladder in a jiffy.”

. My descent to the ground is still • like a hideous dream. I have a dim recollection of twisting and turning, and the same time falling down, down, till it seemed as if I were dropping into a bottomless pit in the infernal regions.

There was more shouting by the throng of people, and before I knew it I was standing on Mother Earth once more, with Oglethorpe shaking my arm off. We looked upward, expecting to see Proctor climb down the rope. To the surprise of everyone, he pulled it up a third time. “What’s he doing?” asked the fire chief. “Why doesn’t he slide down that rope?” “He knows what he’s about,” said the millionaire. “Loqk!” To our amazement the rope dropped from the window with knots in it about six feet apart.

“By Jove!” exclaimed the chief. “That’s a trick worth knowing. Wonder how he did It in such a ffcort •Me?”

We saw <«nb feet come through the window, where he had to manoeuvre a moment to wind hie legs around the rope: then be slid dvw* from the one knot to the next easily and graoefully, disdaining to use the ladder, and Anally landed safely oa the ground. *

Tom called to see me the next day, smiling and happy. “I’ve got the million all right, Mr Burrows,” said he, “and I have been walking on air ever since. Have to Sinch myself to make sure I’m not reaming. It’s « mighty queer feeling, and I haven’t got acclimated yet. The papers laid it on so thiuk that I had to sneak through the back streets to get here—people stare at me ao.” “I don’t want you to think that I took advantage of Oglethorpe because his life was in danger. I merely profited by his generous offer. It was a matter of business, pure and sitnpte, and the fact that he paid up like a man is proof that be considered it a square deal.” “And, by the way, Mr Burrows.” he added, “that was the turning of the hide, after all.*’ St. Louis “Globe Democrat.”