CHAPTER XI.
A MYSTERY.
"I tell you, Nipper, if you will only give me half a chance I will make the matter all right. What do you get by pushing me so? The plain facts are that if you have me arrested, you getnothing; whereas if you let me alone I will do as I have promised, and you shall not only have the full value of the notes, but the bonus besides."
Ben listened intently for the answer. It was in the dusk of evening, and he was sauntering up from a view of one of the most picturesque bridges in the world—and the only one of its kind in the United States; there being only one duplicate in existence, and that in Europe. It is of iron and spans the Monongahela (Oh gloriously suggestive name! Whose delightfully realistic anatomy is so pregnant with remembrances of the liquid destruction our grandsires admired!) immediately at the point of land formed by the wedding of that stream with the Alleghany; the two thereafter journeying through life as one under the name of Ohio.
As Ben was turning the angle of a low wooden shed, the voices of persons in conversation struck upon his ear, and the familiar tones of one of them caused him to take to the shade of the building and play the not very honorable part of eavesdropper. Charles Lever, in that picturesque, but highly improbable "Boy of Norcotes," allows the boy to state in a priggish manner, that eavesdropping is reprehensible on account of the impossibility of a gentleman using the information so obtained, and immediately thereafter causes the boy to tell all he overhears. Ben had not read the book referred to, and did not feel ashamed of himself. Nor having listened was there a dull, dead feeling of lost self-respect that urged him to go and throw himself into the river, and seek at its bottom oblivion offering a rest from remorse that this life could never offer. Nothing of the sort. He listened because he wanted to hear, and was glad of the opportunity. For the voice belonged to the man whom he had had the encounter with in Jersey City, when he first felt the influence of the grey eyes.
It was the tall dark escort, whom she had called "Arthur," and he was talking to a thick-necked, thick-shouldered, thick-faced, and—possibly—thick-headed individual, who appeared—if Ben could judge from what passed,—to hold Arthur in no very high repute.
"I tell you, Blackoat," said the thick man, "I am in need of the money, and the matter's run long enough. You have been promising, and promising, and promising, until I am tired of promises and want something more substantial, or you "go up" so sure as my name is Jonah!" And the namesake of the ancient mariner who "beat" the whale out of forty days board and lodgings, brought one hand down on the other decisively.
"See here, Nipper," said Blackoat, "don't make a fool of yourself. It might afford you a high moral satisfaction to know that I was working for the state, but it would be no money in your pocket. Wait. Be patient. I can not compel her to marry me, and in another month, if she continues to refuse me, I will have the money any way—and the whole of it."
"Three hundred thousand dollars?" asked Jonah.
"Three hundred thousand dollars," replied Blackoat. "I do not ask you to believeme; go ask old Braster if such is not the will."
"Yes, yes, that's all right enough, but you are not keeping up to our agreement, Blackoat," replied Jonah. "You told me you'd marry and settle with me before August, and here it is September. It won't do. I'm getting no interest on my money," and this modern Jonah, whom Mr. Blackoat would have been so pleased to throw overboard and have a whale swallow, even if it did set wise theologians by the ears for the next three thousand years, stamped his foot.
"How much interest do you want?" asked the other.
"One thousand dollars a month, until paid, is little enough," answered Nipper.
"Oh, now the cat's out of the bag. That's what brought you on here, is it?" cried Blackoat. "I will not give it! I will not!"
"That settles it," replied Nipper quietly, and turning on his heel professed to be about to walk away, when the other grasped his arm.
"See here, Nipper," said he, in a tone of supplication, "be reasonable."
Nipper turned in a positive manner, and replied in a positive manner that admitted no protests:
"Blackoat it'sforgery! You pay me one thousand dollars a month for the privilege of remaining out of states prison. You will either agree to that, and give me notes for it this very night, or I will sacrifice twenty thousand dollars to see you get your just deserts. You know me."
Alas, Mr. Arthur Blackoatdidknow him, and knew him only too well. He knew that this namesake of the original whaler could sacrifice twenty thousand dollars and still have many thousand left. He also knew that he would do it if so inclined. Therefore he remarked in a dejected voice:
"Nipper, it's the meanest piece of work I ever heard of. You knew of the stipulations of that will, and bought up those notes on speculation, and the face value would well repay the investment. It's the—"
"See here, no more of this, Blackoat," sternly interrupted the holder of the notes. "How I came by the paper is my business. That Idohold them, and in them have the power to send you to prison and ruin your chances to get one cent of the three hundred thousand dollars, is enough for you to know. Will you do as I demand? Answer yes or no?"
"It's an outrage, but I'll have to submit," replied Blackoat, angrily. "Come to the Monongahela House and I will give you my notes for it," and Mr. Blackoat turned toward his hotel, with Mr. Nipper quietly walking beside him.
Ben was about to leave the friendly shade that had hidden him, when a small, lithe figure sprang from the shed through an aperture made by a loosened board. This new party on the scene gazed earnestly after the two retreating men; shook his clenched hand at them and muttered, "I'll have you yet! I'll have you yet!" Then turned and ran swiftly away in an opposite direction. Ben was so astonished that before he could call out, the flying form was lost in the dusk of the night.
It was Tommy.
As he slowly wended his steps down Duquesne Way to the great tramp resort he cogitated upon the evening's developments. And the result of his reflections was that there was a mystery connecting the owner of the glorious, grey eyes with Arthur Blackoat, who in turn was likewise connected with the thick man, Nipper, (who was evidently the latter's Jonah) and Blackoat in his turn was somehow connected with his little friend Tommy. But this was as far as he got. What the mystery was he could not surmise, and as he was not a very imaginative young fellow, he contented himself with the reflection that "Time tells all things," and hoped Time would not neglect its business in this instance.
"Well," said Ben, as he looked up at a somewhat pretentious three story brick building, fronting on the Alleghany river, "they have provided a pretty respectable-looking hotel for us people of the foot-path, any way."
A short flight of stone steps led up to a broad hall way, that entered a spacious, well-lighted office. Well dressed men were lounging about, and passing in and out, the same as at any other hotel.
"Indeed," thought our hero, "thisisa new departure in tramping. How well they dress and how comfortable they appear to be." To make no mistake he stepped up to a group of three men lounging over an iron railing. Their tatterdemalion attire, and general air of conglomerate dirt and rags, denoted them to be the bona fide article.
"Recent arrivals, probably, who have not yet had time to recuperate under the beneficent influences of the 'home,'" thought he.
"Is this the Young Men's Home, the place where they take in strangers?" he asked.
Yes. There was where they took in strangers. He had struck the right spot. He was to go right in and register at the office.
Ben entered without noticing that the three tatterdemalions ranged themselves on the sidewalk where they could get a good view of the interior, each having a face illumined by a broad grin of expectancy.
The office was a spacious, steam heated apartment. Ben boldly affixed the name of "B. Cleveland, New York City," to the register, and the polite clerk asked him if he had had supper. Replying in the negative, he was informed that supper was still in progress, and pointed out the dining hall. But as he turned his steps toward the designated door, the polite clerk called to him:
"One moment, if you please, sir. Have you any baggage?"
"No sir," replied Ben in surprise.
"It is our invariable rule to ask a settlement in advance from those who have no baggage," said the polite clerk.
"Settlement!" exclaimed Ben growing red to the roots of his hair; "why I thought this was a charity!"
"Oh," replied the clerk, "you are in the wrong pew. Step around in the alley, and enter the first door to the right."
As Ben retreated his feelings were not improved by an audible titter indulged in by the loungers present.
(And right here permit us to parenthetically ask what it is that causes man to so enjoy the misery of his fellow man? Some one has discovered that the pinnacle of human happiness is based upon the miseries of others. Is it so? A drunken man reels, falls and breaks his nose. We laugh. A poor, poverty-stricken, hungry, ragged wretch is driven from a door. We laugh. A fellow mortal makes a mistake that causes him intense mortification and suffering. We laugh. What causes us to do all this laughing at the troubles of others?)
On the sidewalk Ben was met by the three bona fides, rubbing their hands in high glee.
"What did he tell you? What did he say? Did you gin him a racket? He won't take it, he won't. Ha, ha!" and the three were very merry, it afterwards appearing that the sending of fresh tramps into the hotel office to annoy the clerk, was an æsthetic diversion peculiarly acceptable to the trio.
The "entrance in the alley" proved to be quite a different affair. In a narrow, little landing,—highly perfumed with the odors of rum, tobacco, and dirt in general,—Ben's age, name, nativity, trade and condition of life were taken down in a big book by a man who occupied a small rough board office, and held communications with the outer world through a diminutive pigeon hole. Having furnished the desired information, our hero was presented with a meal ticket, and informed that the hospitalities of the "Home" were extended to him for three days, if he could not sooner find employment, after which he would have to provide for himself and pay the transient rates of five cents per meal and ten cents for lodging.
These preliminaries having been gone through with, he ascended a flight of narrow stairs, and was ushered into the greatest tramp resort in the United States, and probably the best patronized in the world.