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THE TUNNEL THE TUNNEL BY BERNARD KELLERMAN NEW YORK THE MACAULAY COMPANY 1915 Copyright, 1915, by THE MACAULAY COMPANY CONTENTS CHAPTER PART I PAGE I MACALLAN, ENGINEER 11 II THE BEST BRAIN IN THE WORLD 28 III A SHADOW • 32 IV PREPARATION 35 V HARD AT WORK 40 VI THE CONFERENCE 43 VII TRIUMPH 55 VIII THE WORLD IS STIRRED 59 IX THE WORK BEGINS 63 PART II I "UNCLE ToM" 'n II TIME TELLS 88 III WOOLF 97 IV THE PUBLIC COMES IN 101 V A Busy MAN's WIFE 104 VI MAUD'S RESOLVE 112 PART III I INTO THE DARKNESS 117 II FORWARD! 122 III CHANGE • 126 IV THE GAME OF PATIENCE 129 v THE WORK GROWS 135 VI SPRING TIDE 141 VII THE EPIC OF IRON 148 VIII THE ETERNAL TRIANGLE 151 CONTENTS CHAPTER PART IV PAGE I "THE SONG OF MAC " 159 II THE GREAT CAT.A.STROPHE 165 III PANIC • 175 IV SUSPENSE • 184 v "LET MAC PAY!" • 188 VI ON THE RACK 194 VII INTO THE PIT 201 VIII THE RECKONING 208 IX THE STRIKE 214 PART V I REVOLT 221 II BACK FIRE 230 III AT THE WHEEL AG.A.IN 234 IV CLOUDS ON THE HORIZON 238 v THE GENTLE ART OF HIGH FINANCE 242 VI LLOYD'S WARNING . 249 VII CALLED TO ACCOUNT . 253 VIII THE SPECTER 263 IX SM.A.LL CHANGE, PLEASE! 267 x FIRE! 270 XI ALLAN ESCAPES 272 XII HUNTED • 274 PART VI I FIGHTING ALoNE 281 II PLANS AGLEY • 289 III BURNT BRIDGES 296 IV THE TIDE TURNS 301 v FULL SPEED AHEAD I 308 VI THE LIGHT FROM BEYOND 314 CONCLUSION 316 PART I THE TUNNEL PART I I MAC ALLAN, ENGINEER THE New York season reached its climax with the opening concert in the newly-built Madison Square Palace. There was an orchestra of two hundred and twenty performers, every single one of whom was a musician of repute. The most famous living composer had been secured specially for the occasion as conductor. The unprecedented fee of six thousand dollars was to be paid him for the evening. The prices of the tickets astonished even New York. No places were to be had for less than thirty dollars, and the speculators in seats had driven the price of a single box up to two hundred dollars and more. The figure would not frighten away anybody who needed, or wanted, to cut a dash! Towards eight o'clock Madison Avenue and Twenty-Sixth, Twenty-Seventh and Twenty-Eighth Streets were crammed with motor-cars. The dealers in tickets, their hands full of dollar bills, their faces streaming with perspiration despite a temperature below freezing-point, darted in and out reck lessly between the wheels. They sprang up on the steps, and on the seats by the chauffeurs, sometimes even on the roofs of the cars, their harsh voices rising above the din of the traffic: " Here you are! Here you are ! Two stalls, B!lCOnd row! Two Grand Circle seats! Here you are!" ••• A sharp hail storm. swept down upon the moving mass like grape shot. The moment the window of a car was lowered, there would 11 12 THE TUNNEL be fresh cries of " Here! " and a zigzag race of competing vendors to it. The drops of sweat on their brows had time to freeze during the few seconds which passed while they disposed of their tickets and pocketed the money. The concert was timed to begin at eight o'clock, but at a quarter past there were still endless rows of cars waiting their turn to draw up in front of the portico, glowing a warm red in the cold damp air, which formed the entrance to the brilliantly illumined foyer. A stream of gayly attired pleasure seekers flowed from the cars into the theater, watched with unceasing interest by two rows of soberly clad onlookers on each side of the portico, their attention caught now by some priceless fur, now by a cluster of diamonds in the hair, here by a gleam of silks, there by a dainty foot. The plutocracy of Fifth Avenue, as of Boston, Philadelphia, Buffalo, and Chicago, filled the ornate, overheated Concert Room, splendidly decorated in red and gold. The manipula ting of thousands of fans kept up a constant vibration of the air. At times a wave of almost overpowering scent seemed to rise above the subtle and pervading aroma produced by the plaster and lacquer work and the still fresh paint upon the walls. Innumerable rows of electric lamps shone so bril liantly from the arches of the roof and from the encircling galleries that only strong eyes could bear the light. Into the ears of this fashionable audience, almost as ultra modern as the Concert Room itself, poured forth the music of the grand old masters, long since out-moded. Mac Allan, the well-known engineer, with his young wife Maud, occupied a small box just over the orchestra. He was indebted for this to his friend, Hobby, the architect of the building. He had not come up from Buffalo, where he had a manufactor~ of steel implements, to listen to music, of which he had no kmd of understanding, but with a view of securing a ten minutes' interview with Lloyd, the great banker and rail road magnate, the most powerful man in the United States and one of the richest in the whole world-an interview of the utmost importance to him. During the afternoon in the train, Allan had had to fight MAC ALLAN, ENGINEER 13 against a kind of nervous excitement, and again, a few minutes ago, on noticing that Lloyd's box, on the opposite side, was empty, he had been a victim momentarily to this strange feeling of feverish agitation. Now, however, he was himself again. Lloyd might not appear at all, he reflected. Probably he did not come very often. Even if he did come, nothing might result from the interview, despite Hobby's triumphant tele gram. Allan sat there quietly, like a man who knew how to wait. He lounged in his seat, his broad shoulders well back, his legs stretched out the whole length of the box, and gazed calmly round at the house. He was not a big man, but he was squarely and strongly built, like a boxer. His head in particular was square and massive, his complexion was un usually dark. His skin looked sunburnt even now in the depth of winter. His carefully parted hair was brown, and shone like copper in the glare of the electric lights. His eyes were deep set, beneath prominent eyebrows; they were of a light bluish-gray, with an expression of almost childlike good humor. You would probably have placed him as a naval officer, just home on leave, and not quite at ease in his dress clothes: a healthy, hearty specimen of humanity, a bit rough perhaps, but not unintelligent-not a notable personality in any way. He whiled away the time as best he might. The music had no effect on him beyond interrupting his thoughts and preventing him from keeping them concentrated upon any thing. He noted the dimensions of the immense hall, with its tiers of boxes and its lofty roof. His eyes wandered ovei;. the sea of waving fans in the stalls and he reflected that there was a lot of money about in New York, and that this assuredly was the place for inaugurating such an enterprise as his own. His brain, practiced in such matters, began working out a calculation of what the lighting of the hall would cost per hour. He decided that it must amount to about a thousand dollars. Now he applied himself to the study of the indi vidual faces among the men in the audience-women had no 14 THE TUNNEL interest for him. His glance traveled back to the orchestra immediately in front of him. As is the case with all who un derstand nothing of music, he was astounded by the mechan ical precision with which the members of the orchestra played. He leaned forward a little to scrutinize the ~onduc tor. This slenderly built, narrow-shouldered man with the distinguished bearing, who was being paid six thousand dollars for the evening, was to Allan an enigma. He watched him long and attentively. It was an unusual head. With its hooked nose, its bright alert eyes, its compressed thin lipped mouth, and hair flowing back from the forehead, it had something of the vulture about it. The man seemed all skin and bone and nerves. But he stood there calmly amid all the chaos of voices, silencing them at will with a motion of his white, fragile-looking hand. Allan marveled at him, as at a magician into whose power and mysteries he could not even try to penetrate. He thought of him as of a survivor from an era long past and belonging to a strange unintelligible :foreign race that soon would be extinct. At this moment the conductor threw up his hands with a convulsive movement. There was a deafening climax and then suddenly the orchestra was still. An avalanche of applause swept through the immense hall. Allan, with a sigh of relief, made a movement as though to rise from his seat, but the music was not done with yet, they were beginning the Adagio. From a neighboring box came the fragment of a conversation ... "Twenty per cent. man! As good a thing--" Constrained to sit still a little longer, Allan set himself to a study of the construction of the tier of boxes, which puzzled him a little.

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