"Edith," said Star, approaching her in one of her rounds of walking the floor, "come, tell me what is agitating you so today, that I might be of help."
Placing her arm around Star's waist, without a word, she drew Star along in her walk, looking dreamily, and seeing nothing, save what the illusive eye might see in the distance. Star returned the friendly embrace of Edith, and with their arms around each other, the two walked and walked, both silent. Edith silent over what she was pondering on, Star silent over what she feared was an unnatural mental balance.
"Are you ill today, Edith?" asked Star.
"Oh, no, Star; I am feeling very well today," replied Edith.
"But you are so quiet and unresponsive that I can't quite make you out," said Star.
Then leading Star to the window where she sat with her father the day before, Edith asked her to sit down that she might have a word with her.
"Star," she said, seriously, relenting in her purpose to keep her secret longer, "what you told me two nights ago I have discovered to be too true—at least in a circumstantial way," said Edith.
"Why, then, haven't you told me, Edith, so that I could have a fellow-feeling for you?" asked Star.
"Papa requested me to keep it a secret till he returns; which I should do. But, deary, you know I am like you, it is hard to keep a secret," said Edith, still uncertain whether to proceed farther.
"Now, my dear Edith! I never tell anybody any secrets but you, and you tell them to nobody else, and you never tell any to me, so that is as far as yours ever get."
"Star. I must refreshen your memory a little," said Edith, playfully. "I am not scolding you, you know; but just reminding you a little. Now, didn't you tell Mr. Winthrope something?"
"Well, wasn't he entitled to it?" said Star, laughing.
"Then you won't, in this instance, tell anybody?"
"No—o—hope'm'die," returned Star, crossing her breast.
"Papa has gone to New York to intercept Monroe."
"Has he?" said Star, with wide eyes. "Monroe, then, has gone?"
"Went yesterday morning before papa reached his office. Papa learned some things that substantiated what Mr. Dieman told you, and, putting everything together, he became convinced of the truthfulness of the stratagem of that man Monroe to bring Mr. Winthrope into disrepute. Star, had Monroe succeeded in his designs before I had learned the true status of affairs, I should not have believed anything against him; but now that I have been forewarned, I shall never lose faith in his honor and integrity. Star, I told papa of my love for him, which papa did not accept pleasantly at first, thinking I was in fun, or doing it as a lark to tease him; but when he realized I was never more serious, he called him a fine, perfect young man, and was pleased. There, Star, I have told you what has been on my mind since yesterday. Am I a goosey still?"
"You are a little dove, Edith," said Star, sweetly.
"Star, I should like to see Mr. Dieman," said Edith, changing the subject. "Can you have him come here?"
"I may; but it is doubtful."
"I would go to him, if I could."
"He has a young man named Eli Jerey, who transacts business matters for him. He might be summoned. Mr. Dieman places implicit confidence in him. Everything now must be conveyed through him to Mr. Dieman, I am told. I have seen Mr. Jerey; and I can have him called here to see you for whatever you might want to impose upon Mr. Dieman."
"Is Mr. Dieman so exclusive as that?" asked Edith.
"He is, indeed, Edith. Since his marriage to mother, he has set up in great state, and does nothing but look after his family affairs personally, and transacts other affairs by the way of Mr. Jerey."
"You will vouch for his trustworthiness? at least you can promise that much through what Mr. Dieman represents him to be?"
"Oh, yes; whatever Mr. Dieman says can be relied on."
"Then you may have Mr. Jerey call here at eight o'clock this evening, if he can come."
"Shall I call him now?" asked Star, rising to go to the phone to have a talk with that gentleman.
"Yes. Papa must be in New York by this time; I should know soon, by wire, what Monroe has accomplished," said Edith, as Star was leaving her.
It is wonderful how prosperity transcends every other medium in working a transformation in a poor stick of humanity, who has been chortled, like a shuttle-lock, through the shifting warp of adversity. It is refreshing to observe, sometimes, how often men and women of lowly state can rise, as it were, by their own boot-straps from the great misfortune of having nothing to the ravishing luck of plentitude. It is, indeed, very promising to know that favoring chance does not fall altogether upon the many who are born with silver spoons in their mouths.
It may not have been by his own boot-straps, unaided, that Eli Jerey rose to his plenary rank, or to his financial exhaltation. It may not have been luck alone, or chance, or extended aid, that hoisted him to the skies in the estimation of Peter Dieman; neither could it have been native ability, for his qualifications were of the superficial kind, to the casual observer.
However, whatever the cause might have been, it is one of the certainties of the things that be, that Eli was now in high favor with his former master, and was prospering like a well-conditioned house cat. For Peter was certainly expiating himself for all the cuffs and rebuffs that he had heaped upon that poor lad's head during the period of his vengefulness. Eli was now made plenipotentiary extraordinary of the former junkman, with full rank of major-domo of his private affairs, insofar as they appertained, incidentally, to the junk shop, and the purveying of news of the System between the main totem himself and his sub-lunary lights.
And this elevation of Eli remodeled him as a being. Instead of the stoop-shouldered, thin-faced, frowsy-headed, dirty, unwashed, ill-clad, uncared-for individual that a scanty stipend produces, we now see an erect, sharp-featured, cleanly-shaved, neatly-clad, bright-eyed young man. Although not handsome, his face called for an adulatory responsiveness on the part of those who came in contact with him. Instead of having his hands continually soiled by the labors that he performed in sorting junk and displaying it to customers, it was not uncommon to see him going about the shop gloved in brown kid. Instead of a dark-brown lay-down-collar shirt that always gave him the appearance of a water front workman, he wore boiled linen, decorated with a sparkling stud and flashy necktie. Instead of a greasy coat that hung loosely over his shoulders, he wore a neat business suit. Instead of the sweat-marked slouch hat, that used to loll on one side of his head, he wore a derby. Instead of a chain made of leather, to which was attached a brass watch, he carried a gold ticker fastened to his vest by a delicately-linked chain. Instead of the black, filthy office, in which his master sat for years, and in which he sat for a time after his advancement, he could now be found in a bright, clean place, papered and tinsled and decorated, with a new desk to write at, and a leather-cushioned chair to recline in. Thus he appeared in his new role, when the phone rang one day, as it often did, but now with a different purport than ever before.
"Hello!" responded Eli, taking down the receiver and adjusting it to his ear.
"Yes; this is Mr. Jerey."
"Eli Jerey; yes."
"Yes; Mr. Dieman's office."
"Very busy day; but we're always open for new business."
"A private interview!"
"Can't you come to my office?—I never go out—except ordered by Mr. Dieman."
"Can I come without him knowing it?"
"That depends on the business."
"Well; who wants me?"
"Can't set a time or date till I know."
"What! Mr. Jarney's residence!" ("Well, did you ever!" on the side).
"Miss Jarney!"
"Who's this talking?"
"Star Barton!" ("Well, did you ever!" on the side.)
"Where are you?" now more interested.
"At Mr. Jarney's?" ("Well, what now?" on the side.)
"What time?" ("Bless me!" on the side.)
"Yes; 7 p. m. will do." ("Ha, me!" on the side.)
"I will be there." ("On the dot!" on the side.)
Eli hung up the receiver, stood a moment tickling his right ear with his right forefinger, a habit of his. He was in a confused and perplexed state of mental consternation. Miss Barton! Miss Barton! Peter Dieman's step-daughter! went through his head in a rollicking way. "Hah! Miss Barton! I've heard of her; and Miss Jarney—rich—young—poorty—and wants an interview with me! Humph!" he mused, after sitting down. "Well, I must make myself presentable and go henceforth to meet them in all my dignity; yes, meet my superiors now in all my dignity—hah!"
In due time Eli repaired to his room in the Monongahela House, a very ancient and a very honorable institution of its kind, no other being now suitable to Eli's enlarged notions of refinement. He clothed himself in his best bib and tucker, swatted down his hair so flat that it looked as if it had been laid by a weaver's hand to his swelling head, and powdered his sallow face till it was resplendent with the polish of good looks.
Now, when all was completed he stood before the mirror, like a coquettish maid primping to make a hit, and there saw reflected back a very well appearing young gentleman. He saw all that the art of massaging and ointing and cologning and talcuming and starching and tailoring could mould out of the material at hand. He saw reflected back a youth five feet ten, with hollow eyes, peaked face, broad high forehead, condensed lips, and good teeth, long fingers, all supported by a suit of black, full dress style, with low white vest and patent-leather shoes. He saw also a diamond in his shirt front, white necktie banding a high collar, dark gray gloves, gold-headed cane, and high silk hat.
Before withdrawing from the allurements of the mirror, Eli touched his fingers to his lips, stroked his sandy eyebrows, turned around a time or two, with admiring glances over his shoulder, as he raised or lowered his brows, or opened his mouth to show his teeth to himself; adjusted the plug correctly on his head, drew on his gloves, took his cane in one hand, and receded from his reflected self, with many glancing and furtive farewells at the glass; closing the door at last, regretful that he had so soon to part company with such an admirable picture of budding manhood.
Settling himself inside a glass enclosed auto, he was whizzed through the appalling roar and grime of the city, like the formal gentleman that he was, sitting among the soft and heaving cushions, and looking to the passers-by, in his flight, like the silhouette of a grand bourgeois in contradistinction to the votaries of swelldom. In his present state of perverted obsequiousness, Eli was intensely vain, usually; but now, while in the gentlemanly act of calling upon a lady, so rich that he could not count all her money did he live a thousand years, and at her own request, for an interview, he was ludicrously haughty, and hopelessly ignorant of the rules of deportment surrounding the secluded haunts of the refined and the mighty ones of power and place. Any failings that he had, he did not recognize. His limitations were his blisses. What he did not know, he took as a matter of no consequence. If he saw a thing, it permeated him with unwarped fascination; if he did not see it clearly, he was not troubled. Rising to his present state, was of more importance as to present results, than as to permanency. In truth, he was a queer combination of meritorious attainments now, meaning well, and doing his best to be an efficient collaborator of his famous mentor—Peter Dieman. He was a person of little imagination. Everything was realistic to him. So, in journeying to the Jarneys on this auspicious occasion, he imagined very little about how he should act, or perform, or conduct himself, any more than what would come naturally to him.
When he presented himself to the two young ladies in the drawing room of the mansion on the hill, he shocked them by sitting down with his hat on his head, though they could not help but admire his rich habiliments.
"May I take your hat?" said Edith, approaching him, of course expecting to receive that piece of fine head covering to deposit it where it belonged at such a time.
"No, madam, no; it is just as well where it is," he replied, showing his white teeth through a crooked smile. "I've been used to setting with it on."
He was so unapproachable that Edith was embarrassed before him. Star had remembered him as the former disheartening clerk of her step-father. She had seen him when she had gone to the junk shop with her mother that time for the redemption of her kitchen utensils, and she had not forgotten how cadaverous and impoverished he then looked.
"I presume you remember me?" asked Star, to break the monotonous silence into which the interview had perforce fallen.
"I don't know that I do," said he, showing his fine teeth again, and lifting his eyebrows. "So many people came into the store in those days that I paid little attention to them all."
"Don't you remember the girl who was so poorly clad that was with her mother the day Mr. Dieman gave back the dishes her father had pawned, and against which you protested?" asked Star.
"Are you the gal?" he asked, with brightening face.
"I am the gal," returned Star, laughing.
"Well! how time makes changes in this world," he responded, looking her over carefully, hardly believing that the pretty face of Star's, with pretty gown to match, could possibly be the same. "It beats all; and you are the sister of all of Mr. Dieman's children?"
"Mrs. Dieman's children," she corrected.
"Yes, that's it—I know your sister May," he said, with a smile.
"Do you, really?" said Star.
"I call on him often, and see her, sometimes—she's a dandy," he said.
"A fine girl," corrected Edith.
"Yes; mighty fine," he answered, as he crossed his gloved hands over the head of his cane standing perpendicularly in front of him, and putting his chin down upon them, as if posing as a rejuvenated old man "by the wayside on a mossy stone," looking steadily at them both. "And you are May's sister? Well!"
"I have that honor," replied Star.
"Well! Who would think it? You are so much poortier," he said, quietly and naturally, without intending to be impertinent.
Star blushed at first; but in a moment became vexed, and looked very black at him; that is, as black as she could look, for no matter how she tempered up, not much sign of her resentment was ever evidenced in her face. Edith was astonished at his rudeness, and glanced at Star for an explanation of the bold manner of this young man. Eli, in his transparent innocence, did not feel the effects of their interchange of glances, and was not disturbed. Anticipating that he might precipitate a scene by an unfortunate remark, Edith took up the subject that had caused her to have him present.
"Mr. Jerey," she began, faltering in her speech, "you are Mr. Dieman's agent, I understand?"
"I am," he replied, loftily.
"Do you know Mr. Monroe?"
"I do."
"Do you know Mr. Morne?"
"I do—he's a scamp."
"Do you know Mr. Yenger?"
"I do—he's another scamp."
"Do you know my father?"
"Not personally."
"Do you know Jacob Cobb?"
"I do—he's a—"
"Do you know Jasper Cobb?"
"I do—he's an—"
"Do you know James Dalls?"
"I do—he's a—"
"Well, now; has Mr. Dieman decided to continue keeping company with these people?" asked Edith, warming to her subject.
"For what reason do you ask?" he asked, eyeing her closely, so much so that Edith was discomfitted by his sharp stare.
"It is a matter that concerns me personally, Miss Barton here, and my father," she answered.
"That's not very informing," he replied.
"Do you know Mr. John Winthrope, my father's former secretary?" she asked.
"I never saw him—don't recall that I ever heard of him—yes, believe so—didn't Mr. Dieman speak to me once about him? (asking himself)—yes, believe he did. Well, what of him?"
"Do you know whether Mr. Dieman bears ill-will against him yet?"
"Let me see," said Eli, now in a cogitating tone, still with his chin upon his hands still on top of his cane, but lowering his eyes to the floor; "he never mentioned him but once, and then in connection with—let me see—what?—with your father as secretary, sometime ago—got a phone?" he asked suddenly, now disposed toward being cautiously communicative.
"Yes; do you wish to use it?" asked Edith.
"I would like to before going farther in this talk. Where is it?"
Edith then led the way to the phone room, Eli following, with his hat still on his head, to the disgust even of the servants.
"I wish to be private," he said to Edith and Star, seeing they were inclined to linger near.
"As you wish," they returned, departing and closing the door behind them.
After finishing his phoning, Eli emerged from the room, and strode through the dining room and on through to the drawing room, whistling a ditty, with his plug hat cocked back on his head, swinging his cane round and round, like one out walking for pleasure. He resumed his seat as before, with the ladies as his examiners.
"Well?" said Edith.
"He says he has no ill-will against Mr. Winthrope any more; and requests me to take steps necessary to right any wrong against him. What's your wish?"
"Before I go farther," said Edith, "may I ask you if it is Mr. Dieman's purpose to remain the go-between in the graft system, of which Mr. Cobb is the head?"
"He's making an effort to break from the gang—he's been making the effort ever since he married; but it's hard to let go," said Eli, casting an admiring glance at Star.
"Now, then; as to my wish, Mr. Jerey," said Edith, trying to get his eyes away from Star; "I want you to assist me and my father to break up the ring; in a quiet manner, if possible; if not quietly, then by law."
"What's your object, mainly?" he asked.
"To get such men as Monroe and his dupes and old Mr. Cobb into the toils. These men have not been satisfied in working the graft system for all they are worth, but they have been plotting for months against me and my father. Can I depend on you?"
"You can. But what has Mr. Winthrope to do with it?"
"That is a part of the plot against my father and me."
"Still I can't see—but never mind, I know the other fellers well, and will help you."
"First, get Mr. Dalls back from Europe, and—"
"Say, miss," he broke in, "how did you know all this and these men?"
"Dieman communicated the information to Miss Barton, and she to me."
"Ha!" he ejaculated, and then subsided into a quiet turn for a few moments. "He did, eh?" he proceeded; "then I know he'll approve anything I agree to here. Understand, I only carry information between Mr. Dieman and the lower men."
"I understand," said Edith.
"I will get Mr. Dieman to throw them all overboard soon as I can get my hooks to going," he replied, rising. "Where is Mr. Winthrope?"
"In New York," replied Edith, rising also, and standing awkwardly by waiting for him to move.
"I don't understand where he comes in?" said Eli, as he placed his cane between his arms behind his back, and spraddling out his legs, with his hat cocked back.
"That is another matter," said Edith, attempting to pass it over.
"I am very busy," he said, half-whistling a tune, then drawing his legs together and whirling round on one foot, he directed his eyes upon Star, and remarked: "You are so much poortier than your sister May; and this young lady (turning to Edith) is poortier than all the rest," after which he smiled broadly, showing his good teeth.
It was rather a delicate moment for the young ladies. It was hard to reprove him, when they had solicited his aid in their great undertaking. Star was vexed. Edith was disappointed in him, for she expected that he would show a little more solicitude for her affairs than he showed in his actions and answers to her questions. She drew down her dark brows when he spoke as he did, feeling indignant, and looking at him sharply, said:
"Mr. Jerey, that is very impolite in you."
"Oh, my! beg your pardon!" he said, with an innocent smile. "I am so used to talking to my own sisters when I go home that I really forgot where I was. If you will pardon me, I will go? and not do it any more—but that's my opinion."
As he concluded his apology he simmered down as to smile, looked serious after seeing the ladies were provoked, struck the toe of his patents with his cane, set his hat squarely upon his head, crossed his legs, put his hands in his pockets, with the cane under his right arm, smiled again, resumed a correct form of standing, expecting the while to hear the ladies go on with their scolding. But as they did not say any more, he turned round, and walked out as straightly as a West Pointer on parade, opened the door himself, and let himself out. After closing the door behind him, he stepped to the piazza, and stopped on the edge of it, gawking around like a country lout.
He was nothing of the kind, being absolutely indifferent as to what people thought of him, or as to how he acted, so long as he was not immorally sensitized. He was playing his part in the drama of a great city's life, and playing it excellently; so what did it matter, if the sticklers for formality were shocked.
Going down the long walk through the Jarney grounds, with frosted incandescents throwing fantastic shadows about him, he whistled something that sounded like a hot time in the old town—sometime soon.
Ever efficient and ever advancing, though the time since he left his mountain home was short, John Winthrope had pressed onward and upward till he was not only the assistant treasurer in the New York office, but stood high in the favor of the heads of the great firm; and, if he continued on his outlined course, promised to enjoy still further favors and special privileges. His rapid rising, his pecuniary uplift, his progress in favor, his increasing enjoyment of privilege, his continuing prosperity, did in nowise diminish his sense of duty, nor beguile him from that course which he had laid out to follow when he first became obsessed with the idea of making his mark in the world of finance, as seen through the eyes of steel and iron.
During all the months, dreary though they were, that he went through in the city of Pittsburgh, he continued to live, according to his own adopted code, at the cheap lodging house in Diamond alley. The emoluments of his position, handsome though they might be considered for one so young as he, and for one so new in the ranks of the employed, were not any more compensatory than the allotments, as per schedule of bills to be met, demanded. For, after paying for his simple lodging, his small personal requirements, and sequestering a sum for the inevitable rainy day, he sent the balance to his parents to assist them in the liquidation of a debt of purchase on their home in the hills beyond the roar and turmoil of business; to which home he hoped to go sometime, an ever present dream, to spend his leisure days, or to rest when the burdens of life should become too great for his shoulders to carry.
Being steadfast of purpose, and retired in a social way, he had it over other men in his unquenchable ambition to make good—in that, instead of idling away his time in questionable company, as so many such young men do, or loafing about clubs being a good fellow at a high cost, he enlarged his knowledge of the details of business by utilizing his spare moments in courses of suitable studies, in which he exercised his energies and ability to their utmost.
After being transferred to his new post, he did not change his plans, even though his compensation was enhanced to a surprising and very agreeable amount; nor did he deviate one iota from his habits of living. He did one thing, however, which is pardonable and commendable, and that was to dress as became his office with a much more satisfactory and becoming taste. Blessed with good looks, a frank, open countenance, a finished polish, and a natural grace, any personal adornment was befitting to him. In his case, the clothes did not make the man, but the man made the clothes, as is often true in some men and women. By gradual degrees, his cheap shop clothes, as they gave way to the ravages of wear and time, were displaced by stylish modern cuts, tailored and otherwise; but this only happened as wages increased and exigencies demanded.
So he may now be seen at his desk in a neatly fitting business suit of dark serge, with creases in the trousers, and his coat collar always clean of dandruff and falling hair. His shirt fronts were the nattiest, his collars the whitest, his ties the neatest, his shoes the highest polished of anyone in the office. With his dark-brown hair, clear blue eyes, fair skin, smooth face and dark eyebrows, he could well be envied by those less gifted.
Still, with all these characteristics, he was the least reconciled to his lot. In March he was called upon to take his leave for New York. In March he was compelled to take leave of the sick young woman, whom he had visited every day without a break for months by force of the most unusual circumstances that ever came to a young man, or to any man, perhaps. He had become so accustomed to these daily visits to Edith's bedside, and had become so fraught with the most formidable fire of life, that when the final day came round, he seemed to have buried the object before his going, and lived in a perpetual dream thereafter, still perplexed and confounded by a mystery.
Edith was not yet well when he last looked upon her face; but signs of improvement were ever growing brighter. This is what gave him such pain of heart—the thought that he had to leave when the time had come for him to see her in her reason. But still, he thought, perhaps it was for the best. For was she not laboring under an hallucination, a delusion, a wild estrangement of the senses? And, of course, when she came to herself, he would, by virtue of the natural laws of caste, have to go his own way after all, and find solace for his passion in some other person less worthy. It was better, thought he, that he was away—so far away that he should never see her again; and time, the sure healer of all ills, of all regrets, of all sorrows, of all misery, would bind his wounds from the harrowing effects of proud flesh. He could never hope, was his everlasting complaint, to vie with other men in the conquest of her heart. So why fret away his time on such an improbable question? Seeing all these things in this light, and believing in them seriously and honorably, he exerted his best endeavors to cast the burden from his soul. But the burden was too heavily laden to be so easily thrust aside.
He had not heard from her since the last evening he left her home—except on one occasion, when a letter from her father to another member of the firm in the branch office, indirectly referred to her improving condition. This was all—a very slim thread it was upon which to build any hope that she, in her enlightening mind, ever again called for him, which seemed proof sufficient to convince him of his preconceived opinion.
But—why? but—why? he always asked himself, did she make such an impression on him, unless he had struck, in her heart, a responsive chord. No matter how he reasoned, he invariably got back to the premises of his theme, namely, that he could not hope for any recognition on her part so long as their stations in life were miles and miles apart.
He had spent many days on this unsolvable proposition, in all its various phases, and was still weighing it in his mind, even while busily engaged at his desk, when, one day, Miram Monroe was announced, and led into his office with all those outrageous formalities that flunkies about such offices show to their superior beings, who have the brains and money to conduct gigantic industrial corporations. Mr. Winthrope was surprised more than he felt able to express himself; but he good-humoredly extended his hand and saluted him with a cheerful, "How are you? and how are all the people back in old Pittsburgh," meaning, of course, the people only in the main office.
Mr. Monroe was as stoical as ever, but he greeted John with considerable more cordiality than had been his wont. "They are all prospering," he answered, as he glanced around the room.
John watched him closely, in a critical way, having in mind the telegram he had received the day previous from Mr. Jarney that said, "Beware of Monroe." John did not fully understand the meaning of this telegram; but he read its significance in the face of the man standing now before him, which, as he then looked at it, presented a mixture of tragedy, comedy, treachery and sculduggery. He saw these traits now in Monroe, not that his face had presented them to him on any other occasion, but the telegram had revealed to him too forcibly what he could not before comprehend. Why did Mr. Jarney send it, if the coming of Monroe was not for some insidious purpose? he asked himself.
"You do not often come to New York, Mr. Monroe—at least, not to this office," said John, breaking the ice for a plunge into Mr. Monroe's perverseness toward a hateful silence.
"Not often," he answered, extracting some papers from an inside coat pocket. He began deliberately to run over these papers, as if looking for a particular one. Finding one that seemed to meet his searching approval, he drew up a chair to a desk in the middle of the room and sat down, still very deliberately, with his eyes bent upon the paper that he held in his hand.
Concluding that Monroe was not willing to be communicative about his errand, John sat down at his own desk. Scrutinizing Monroe from a side view, he saw it was the same face that was so indefinable to him in his apprenticeship in the head office; the same lengthened visage that then struck him so forcibly as that of a mountebank, clothed in undeserving power; the same white, wrinkleless skin that reminded him perpetually of a true portraiture of a ghost. John sat spell-bound, drawn irrisistably to this peculiarly eccentric man.
Monroe sat pouring over his papers, as if it had been his custom to come there every day and do the same thing, unbelievably composed in his manner. To John, there was a mephistophelean aspect about Monroe, as he sat at the desk, apparently in the throes of some abstruse problem that he could not readily make out. But, however, after awhile Monroe seemed to have reached a solution of what he was delving into, and directly turned and faced John, with his usual inane stare.
"Mr. Winthrope," said he, with no change in the monotonous enunciation of his words, so precise did he give utterance to them, "there seems to be an error in your accounts, which indicates a shortage in this office."
"An error! A shortage!" gasped John, as if he had been stabbed from behind with a dagger.
"Yes;" answered Monroe very slowly, very mouse-like, very aggravatingly, "a shortage—or an error." He straightened up in his chair, after saying this, to see the effect of his assertion in John's countenance.
Recovering his composure in a moment or so, John drew down his eyebrows to a scornful straightness, and glared at his accuser. John was not very often convertable to such an exhibition of temper; but when his name and his honor were brought under reproach, his resentment became visibly uncontrollable.
"Do you mean, Mr. Monroe," said John, looking straight into his gray-green eyes, "that I am short in my accounts with this office?"
"That is my intimation," replied the insinuating Monroe, opening his mouth squarely at the emphasizing of "my". "I have been sent here to have a reckoning with you."
The very bluntness of his statement was so monstrous to John, that he could not, for a short time, comprehend what it meant for him. The very essence of the assertion was too much for his grasp, so horrified was he for the few moments that he sat facing the serene detractor of his character. The very thought of such a crime was so contrary to his nature, that he was almost blind from the sensations of the blow coursing through him.
"Are you in earnest? or are you here to jest with me, Mr. Monroe?" asked John, rousing himself to face the inevitable.
"I am in dead earnest," answered Monroe.
"Then you," responded John, weighing his words, "lie—or some one else—is lying—for—you."
"Don't get agitated and go off half-cocked," said Monroe, in the same icy tone as before. "I'll show to you, in due time, where you have been peculating."
At first, John was on the point of taking physical issue with the challenger of his good name; but remembering the significant telegram from Mr. Jarney, and remembering also that he was at a disadvantage with Monroe over the question of fact, he subdued his passionate feelings, and thought he would parley for time to await the coming of Mr. Jarney before long.
"Some one has been doctoring the books," said John, smoothly, "if there is an apparent defalcation. I know what I have been doing, Mr. Monroe. My cash has balanced each day. My accounts in this office are straight, Mr. Monroe. I am straight, Mr. Monroe. You are crooked. And I will have no more from you till my superiors have been consulted."
"Well, Mr. Winthrope," responded Monroe to John's asseveration, "I am the auditor of the firm for this office, and I am to be consulted first. According to our books you are short. I was, therefore, sent here to have an accounting with you, and if I find that our books are correct and your accounts wrong, I am to have a warrant issued for your arrest. Believe me, Mr. Winthrope, when I say that I find an error which indicates peculating on your part. I do not want to see your name blackened by an exposure that would naturally follow should I take it in my head to proceed against you. I have a free hand to act any way I choose, be that what it may. Now, I can fix this matter up for you so that no word of it will get out, and so that you can leave with money in your pockets, and mine, and no one will be the wiser. I can compromise the matter by you being reasonable. Will you be reasonable and enter into my scheme?"
John was surely astounded at this long speech of Monroe's. He studied a short moment. He did not want to compromise himself with Monroe in any scheme that, if he were guilty, would cover up the crime with which he was charged. If he was found to be responsible for any shortage, he was fully willing to take the consequences which arrest and exposure might entail, rather than attempt to clear himself of the blame, if blamable. But not being guilty, as he had good reason to believe, he held that justice, unless mercilessly blind, would deal fairly with him. Moreover, he would be making a mistake if he did not draw Monroe out, and secure from him his plan of a secret compromise.
"How would you propose compromising the matter, if I am guilty?" he asked.
"By leaguing with you," answered Monroe, artlessly.
"Leaguing with me?" said John, doubtful of his meaning.
"Yes," he answered. "I have a draft here for one hundred thousand, made payable to the treasurer of the New York office. You can get the money yourself by signing it as assistant treasurer. Get it, and we will divide the amount. I will fix the books at the other end so that a discovery cannot be made till we are safely in Europe or South America. Will you do it?"
A new idea came to John, growing on him gradually as Monroe unfolded his nefarious scheme.
"Yes; I will do it," he answered, with alacrity. "Where is the draft?"
Monroe immediately pulled the draft from an inside pocket of his vest. He looked it over, as if he regretted to give it up; then he turned it over to John, with a hesitating hand.
"Get the money," said Monroe, without an intimation that he was pleased, or not pleased, over the readiness with which John seemed to be falling into his trap.
John leisurely put the draft with a number of other drafts he had in his possession belonging to the firm, placed them all together in the firm's bank book, and retreated, without a word, from the enervating personality of Monroe. After depositing the entire sum in the name of the firm, he returned to the office to report to Monroe.
"That is rather a crude piece of business, Mr. Monroe," said John, as he entered the office. Standing with folded arms on the opposite side of him at the flat-top desk, he gave a laugh, and smiled sarcastically, as he said: "Crude! I should say; so crude that it smells of rusted iron!"
Monroe looked up nonplused at the haughty and sneering tone of his inferior; but he showed no irritation.
"Did you get the money?" asked Monroe, blandly.
"I did," answered John, good naturedly.
"Well, divide up," said Monroe, having doubts.
"Oh, I forgot to return with it, Monroe," replied John, as he laughed in his superior's face. "I placed it to the credit of the firm. Believing there was no hurry about dividing up, and thinking tomorrow would do as well as today for that little formality, I changed my mind between here and the bank. The money will keep where it is, Mr. Monroe."
The door of the office opened. The form of Mr. Jarney stood in it for a brief time. Then he closed the door and stood inside the room. He did not advance at once. As Mr. Monroe saw him first, his face took on a yellow pallor. John noticed the change in the coloring of his marbled visage, and turned about. Seeing who the intruder was, he took a few steps across the room, and lively grasped his former master by the hand.
"Glad to see you, Mr. Jarney; very glad," said John.
Mr. Jarney, in turn, greeted John very warmly, and said he was inexpressively happy to see him looking so robust, and hoped that he was still the same unpolluted young man as when he first met him. All of which abashed John so that he blushed.
"Did you get my telegram?" he asked John, yet not turning to greet Monroe, who sat without a tremor at the desk.
"Yes; I have been looking for you all day," replied John. "Here is Mr. Monroe," he said, as he turned and waved his hand toward that brazen piece of trickery.
"Yes; yes; I see Mr. Monroe," said Mr. Jarney, shooting his sharpened glances at him. "I came here to see about some little tricks he is up to. What have you accomplished, Mr. Monroe?"
"Aren't you laboring under a misapprehension, Mr. Jarney?" asked the ghost.
"Oh, not at all, Mr. Monroe," said Mr. Jarney. "I have found you out. I came here to beard you before this young man," rising almost to the angry point in the vehemence of his threat.
"Why, Mr. Jarney," said the lamentable Monroe, "what have I done that you, whom I have always served so faithfully, should hurl aspersions upon my name and cast reflections upon my integrity?"
"Your name and integrity!" said Mr. Jarney, with rising voice. "You haven't either. Where is that draft and those office books? Turn them over immediately to Mr. Winthrope here for safe keeping."
"I have already deposited the draft," interrupted John. "Mr. Monroe proposed to me that we cash it and divide the money. I assented—of course not. He has accused me of being short in my accounts. But he lies—I am not afraid of an investigation, Mr. Monroe."
"Is this true, Mr. Monroe?" asked Mr. Jarney, fiercely, and piercing him through and through with his firmness.
Mr. Monroe cowered before Mr. Jarney's rage, like an abject criminal brought to the confession stage of his stricken conscience, but as blank as ever.
"Is this true, Mr. Monroe?" demanded Mr. Jarney again, still upbraiding him by his fierce tone.
"I am afraid it is," responded Monroe, meekly, with a crestfallen tone, but no change in his countenance.
"I am very sorry for you, Mr. Monroe," said Mr. Jarney, relentingly. "I was infuriated with you a moment ago, and meant to be harsh; but now all that I can say is, that you deserve my pity. Ingratitude is the worst of all mean traits, Mr. Monroe. My advice to you, coupled with my injunction, is that you hasten to the Pittsburgh office, close up your accounts and leave the employment of the firm, taking the other two dupes with you. You may go now. I have no further use for you here."
Mr. Monroe sat dumbly under this withering dressing up; but he was obdurate in his inexpressiveness. Taking Mr. Jarney's cue, he arose, put on his hat, and departed, without a farewell to either one.
That was the last they ever saw of poor Monroe, alive. His body was found next day on a muddy shore, where the sewer rats fight among themselves for a share of the food that the foul sewage spews out with its bile.
Jacob Cobb, the big boss, sat in his easy chair, surrounded by his spendthrift family, with whom he was communing on the glories of that fame which money brings to those who earn not, nor spin.
It was a bright evening in May, with a red sun setting through the upper haze on the horizon, and throwing back through the windows of his mansion a fiery glare, like the gleam of a blast furnace permeating the density of the pall that ever hangs over the valleys skirting the hills to either side. Had he, or they, or any of them, been of a meditative turn, the evening scene might have been likened to the scenes that surround the tempestuous lives of those who toil and dwell where the counterpart of the sun, in this comparison, holds sway throughout the day and night.
But as they were not of a meditative turn, they never saw the black old buildings of the workmen, as grimy as the squat old mills themselves spouting fire from thousands of smoke-stacks, all huddled together in the narrow ways and defiles, like so many barbarous places of habitation, with sooty walls and streaked window panes, and fuming chimney tops, and nowhere scarcely a sign of vegetation to brighten up the dull tones of the desolation. They never saw the grim-visaged, hard-fisted, half-naked men, sweating blood, almost, subjecting the native element of iron to the changing process of the caves of fire, before which they worked and strained their energies to produce the finished product that made it possible for men like Cobb to live in splendor. They never saw the simple homes, the poor homes, the impoverished homes of some of these workmen; or their children in their styles, their plays, their sports, their love-making, their dutifulness to parent, their respect for law, or their shortcomings; nor heard their ambitious cry; nor saw their cheerful endeavors to improve their worldly affairs; nor saw the blight of poverty, nor the curse of rum. They saw nothing, save the rolling smoke from the factory fires which the poor man teased; and, even though it brought them plenty, it gave them long periods of annoyance that they had to endure it. They only saw the setting sun, in that direction, going down into a tarnished sky. But they saw, in the iridescence of their surroundings, the gloat of pomp, the pride of power, the sen-sen of gayety, the joy of lust, the glib of society, the whirl of scandal—the right to graft.
Jacob Cobb was at ease, if ever there was a man in such a heaven of exalted purification, as he sat in his easy chair on this evening. It was the time of his domestic enjoyment, in which no one ever took more delight, the divorce scandal talk to the contrary notwithstanding; and this is one thing to his credit, if he should have credit for anything he has done in this world. Money was his God. Not being competent to amass a fortune, had he applied his talents in genuine business, he, early in life, became a petty politician. Starting as an election board clerk, he ascended the winding stairs of a ward heeler up the many flights till he reached the chief seat in the inner chamber of the Temple of the Bosses, and there he reigned—till he should be dethroned by an aroused public conscience.
He was now in the hey-day of his power, and he ruled with a clenched fist; albeit, at times, he heard temblors below him that might become powerful enough to shake him from his seat. Through a College of Embasies, with Peter Dieman as the dean, he worked the system through the tortuous windings of every channel of business, collecting his tiths as Pharoah collected his charges on his garnerings in the seven years of famine, with about as pitiless a hand. And these tithings were heavy. They poured into the System's exchequer from every source, like the waters that flowed by the city of his birth to form the La Belle Reviere; but, unlike that stream, which flowed to a bigger sea, they stopped at Cobb's gate to enter silently into his dark pool to disappear via an unseen outlet.
Jacob, not being wholly satisfied with what was clandestinely coming his way, connived at other schemes to perpetuate the inflow to his coffers; which was to his shame. The worst of which of his many other designs, was to marry his children to rich men or women, and divide the loot, if money may be christened, in this instance, by that pelfic name. Susanna, the eldest, and Marjorie, the youngest of his two daughters, were already bargained for by two young scions of the rich who had no more reputation to hang to them than discarded touts of the underworld; but their daddies had money, and that counted for much, while innocence had to suffer. But there was Jasper yet, his own young hopeful, past the age of twenty-six, and not yet disposed of. A glimpse into that young man's character has been given in a previous chapter, so here it will suffice to say that he was a profligate of the evilest sort. And Jacob wanted him to capture Edith Jarney! God forbid such a union! Purity joined to degradation in holy wedlock? Not if Edith Jarney knew her mind; for it would be unholy wedlock. Mrs. Cobb was equally as mercenary with her children as their father. She it was that first proposed the horrid scheme. She it was that taught them how to ensnare the victims marked for their bows. She it was that led them to the idol that they were to worship. She it was that schooled them in the ways of snobbery. And they called her a doting mother. And Jacob willingly acquiesced.
Those who teach that man is only a biological entity might find in such sons and daughters good subjects for their experimentation, and prove their theory by the aid of the divorce courts.
"Jasper, it is time for you to make some headway with Miss Jarney," said his doting mother, on this evening, as they all sat around their father in his ease.
Jasper, who had been sitting near in a despondently moping manner, suddenly aroused himself to the importunate remark, and looked disconsolate enough to arouse the sympathy of every one bent on reforming young blades; for he had been out the night before, and showed evidences of heavy dissipation.
"Mother, you are always going on at me about Miss Jarney," he retorted. "She's been sick for the past five months or more; I have seen her but once, and then had no chance of seeing her alone."
"Yes, dear Jasper, you must brace up, now, and make of yourself more of a man, if you want to improve on your opportunity of winning such a prize," said Jacob Cobb, with some disparaging sentiments in his tone.
"Father, you too? Give me a chance, and when the opportunity arrives, I shall propose," returned Jasper.
"You should not lose a minute's time," said the mother, with faith. "That man Monroe is out of the way now, and the other young man is too poor for her to take in place of you. See your sisters! Both already engaged, and soon to be married, yet both of them younger than you. You are too slow in pursuit of such happiness. Why, you should have had it settled long ago. Had I had my way about it, it would all have been over with, and you two fixed comfortably in a house of your own, giving swell dinners, balls and parties, eh, Jasper? Edith is a fine girl, and I know she will be a good keeper of a house for you."
"She is going to the mountains soon, mother, I am informed," said he, with design; "and I have half a notion to go up there for awhile to get away from my associates."
"That's the thing! that's the thing!" exclaimed the father, delighted at the prospect of getting the two together at some summer place. "Go it, boy! go it, and push your suit."
"How nice it would be, Jasper," said Susanna, with glee, "for you to get away from the city for a time."
"It would do you worlds of good, brother," assented Marjorie, "to get away from the smoke awhile."
"You know, Jasper, we had planned to go to Paris for the summer and take you along; but we can spare your company this time," said the doting mother, "if it will give you the opportunity to make good."
This inane conversation anent Jasper's future was broken up by a messenger appearing at the door, with a very urgent note from Peter Dieman, requesting Jacob Cobb to come to his mansion without delay. Jacob responded without delay, and was soon sitting by the throne of that spectacular king, who still was wearing his mandarin robe, fez-like cap, and smoking another vile cigar.
"Have you heard the latest, Jacob?" asked Peter, when Jacob was seated comfortably blowing up clouds of white vapor in corresponding rings with Peter's smoke-stack.
"No," answered Jacob, with no uncommon concern.
"Well, be prepared to hear the worst—Jim Dalls is back from Europe, and is going to squeal on us," said Peter, with as little concern as Cobb at first appeared to show.
"No!" exclaimed Jacob, with a cloud on his face that was sufficient almost to obscure the smoke from his cigar.
"It is true," said Peter, still unconcerned. "He was here this evening."
"What brought him back?" said Jacob.
"Run out of funds, he said," said Peter, blowing smoke with much complacency.
"Couldn't you send him any more?" asked Jacob.
"I sent for him," said Peter, now looking at Jacob with an air of supercilious gravity.
"God man! what do you mean? Do you mean to ruin us all?" shouted Jacob, excitedly.
"Be calm, Jacob; be calm, and save your nerves for what is coming," said Peter, gently. "He came by my request, and is to make a confession before the grand jury—at my request, too. So if you want to save your old bacon, pull down your shaky house of graft and hit the trail for Europe; for you will be the first one caught in the net, Jacob."
"Oh, Lord man! What do you mean? This is awful! This is horrid! This is terrible! Exposed by my chief deputy like that! I'll never forgive you, Peter! Never! And when it blows over, I shall return and cook you a dish that you won't relish!" cried Jacob, now in a frenzy of excitement.
"Why, I am safe from harm," said Peter, calmly.
"What did you do it for?" asked Jacob, in great anger.
"To be plain to you, sir, I may state that that's my business," said Peter, cooly.
"Then, we part enemies?" asked Jacob, with a daggerous look.
"We do—if you want to; but, Jacob, you'd better take my humble advice, and go to Europe as quick as you could skin a cat. You know the whole thing will come out anyway when that bank affair is known, which I am assured will be exploded soon, and then the whole shooting match will be busted."
"You had better call on heaven to help you, Peter, when I return—if I go," said Jacob, rising, and leering down upon the king, who sat looking at the floor now, in quiet thought.
"I am not afraid of you, or any one else, Jacob," responded Peter, looking up. "I am a domesticated man now, Jacob, and intend to enjoy the rest of my days right here, in this house, with my wife and ten children."
"You scamp!" hissed Jacob, snarling down upon him, like one dog snarls at another dog with the prize bone.
"Take my advice, Jacob, and go home," said Peter, looking sidewise at Jacob. "You'd better be there packing your grip than standing here calling me hard names. Europe is the safest place for you for the next ten years; so go. I can take care of myself."
"Things have come to a nice pass," said Jacob, "when a man can't enjoy the comforts of a home in this age without every upstart wanting to interfere in his business!"
"It's a nasty business that of yours," said Peter, remorselessly. "I've been tired of it for a long time, and wanted my chance to get out. The chance has come, and I am getting."
"You are an ingrate," replied Jacob, wrathfully. "Being entrenched yourself with safety lines thrown out, so that no one can invade your private affairs, you care nothing for your friends who have divided with you for years. An ingrate! An ingrate, I repeat, Peter! I shall go, and may those vapid detectives who have been here for months trying to make a break in our lines, find you out, and help to punish you."
"Oh, that's all right, Jacob," said the suave Peter. "I know all about their work in this city; but I am beyond their reach. So go, if you don't want to be pinched within a week. Go, I say, to Europe, and maybe you can enjoy life there; and while you are doing it, think of me sometimes, just for old friendship's sake, and take an extra drink on the side for me—that's all. I shall never forget you till my last breath is gone; and I shall never forget the words you have just now said to me, and what impression they have left upon me. Go! Jacob; go! that I may be done with you; that's all." Peter concluded this speech, without either smoking, rubbing or squinting.
"Good night," said Jacob, leaving the king's throne; and the two old cronies in legalized crime (for that is what graft is, nothing more), parted forever.
"Good bye," were the last words that Peter said to him; but Jacob did not hear them, so blind was he in his rage when he stepped out into the cool night air to take up his return to his home again to seek solace in the bosom of his family.
Arriving home, Jacob put his family into a wild uproar when he told them of the result of his visit to Peter Dieman.
"Well, we were going to Europe anyway," said Mrs. Cobb, as a consoling climax to her bewailment. "It is good that I informed our friends of this trip, so they will now be none the wiser. The wedding of the two young ladies can come off in September, as planned. I can return for that, and you can remain in Europe—ill, perhaps. And Jasper need not postpone his expedition into the mountains, you see."
"No, Jasper; you must not fail in that," said Cobb, still unable to give up any of his schemes, so fascinating were they all to him yet, "as I will be compelled to remain for some length of time. If you fail, our fortunes may be somewhat impaired as a result of all this trouble. So don't fail, my boy."
"Oh, I'll win; don't despair, father, for me; I'll win," said Jasper, hopefully, with more interest than ever now in getting a wife with money.
So to Europe Jacob Cobb and his family betook themselves, leaving young Jasper at home, as agreed, to sport awhile with the vixenish little Cupid. Punctilious, as on every other such occasion of the going of such people, the Sunday newspapers, in their society columns, gave a glowing account of the departure of Mr. and Mrs. Cobb and their two daughters for Europe to spend the season (or several seasons it might have been) in Paris; and probably, if not otherwise detained, to Baden-Baden, or to some other noted place, purportedly for the benefit of Mr. Cobb, who (poor man) had been in poor health for months past.
Mercy on us!
Dressed as on the great occasion when he visited Miss Jarney, Eli Jerey called at the home of Peter Dieman but a short ten minutes after Jacob Cobb had left in such a bad temper. Peter was in his jolliest frame of mind, and was still having jerks of felicitation over his fine stroke in besting Jacob Cobb, as he looked at it, when Eli floated into his presence like a fluted lamppost with its light extinguished. Eli sat down with his high hat on the top of his untutored head, as his only hat rack, when Peter took up the thread of the subject about where he and Jacob broke it in their slight misunderstanding.
"When I told him to skip out, Eli, he flew the handle to beat all," said Peter. "He threatened, if he ever returned, to cook a dish for me that I would not relish."
"Did he, though?" said Eli, raising his eyes to the level of Peter's. "Now what kind of a dish could he cook for you, do you suppose?"
"I suppose he refers to the street paving proposition," responded Peter.
"Which one? Where the wooden blocks were used?"
"I suppose so."
"Well, Mr. Dieman, we might as well be honest now and say the truth sometimes; but that was a very bad piece of jobbery for all connected with it—even for the wood blocks, as you will see when a year has passed."
"How?"
"In it, the city got its worst job, the contractors worser jobbed, the grafters got jobbed good and plenty, and the wood blocks will be so jobbed that you will not be able to find any in another turn of the sun around the seasons."
"But how will he connect me with it?"
"He can't, Peter; he can't. I can swear that none of the money came to you by the way of our office. It all went through Cobb's hands, and I have the receipts."
"Bully, boy! Bully for you! When I die, I will leave you the old shop and all it holds. You have a slick head, Eli, for such things. Who'd thought Jacob would have given his receipt?"
"I forced it out of him. Told him: no receipt, no money."
"I knew you'd fix it all right when I left it all to you. Why, boy, you don't blame me for having confidence in you?—But Jim Dalls?"
"Oh, he's to keep you out, as agreed, and is to go free on making his confession, and sticking to it at the trial. I tell you, he'll fix a lot of them high-ups and others who've been in the game so long they can't believe but what they're honest and upright citizens."
"Bully! Then all danger for me is over?" asked Peter, chuckling in such a whimsical manner that Eli felt moved himself to get up and hammer him on the back for fear he was choking on his good humor.
"Over," returned Eli, decisively.
"Good! Say Eli, I was only running a bluff on Cobb at first, when I said they couldn't get me—I hear Monroe's dead?"
"Deader'n a fried oyster since he jumped into the Hudson."
"Poor Monroe, I always thought he would hang himself, if given enough rope."
"I am told Mr. Jarney has cleaned out the gang that helped Monroe in his dirty work—that's what becomes of not being faithful to your job, like I've always been, Mr. Dieman," moralized Eli. "Say, did I tell you about seeing May's sister at the Jarneys?"
"No; do tell me about it?"
"Well, I saw her, that's all; and spoke to her, that's all—and my! she's poorty; but I'll stick to May."
"If I let you," said Peter, squinting his eyes, with a funny little twinkle mixed in their movements.
"Why, I came this very night to ask you, Mr. Dieman," said Eli, as an opener to his subject.
"Really, Eli? Impossible!"
"What's impossible?" asked Eli, disheartened at the word "impossible."
"That you came for that purpose," said Peter with a smile.
"I did, sir; indeed, I did, Mr. Dieman," responded Eli, with much feeling.
"Well?" said Peter, with a bearish look.
"May I have her?" blurted out Eli, as he snapped a piece of imaginary lint from his angled knee with the index finger of his right hand.
"Is she willin', Eli?" asked Peter, changing his tone.
"She is," he responded, firmly.
"You've made fine progress, my boy; but you'll have to ask her moth—Kate—" turning his head as he shouted her name for his voice to carry to where that lady sat in the parlor, in the distance, surrounded by her squirming herd of youngsters—"come here!"
Kate came, looking like a queen—in her "rags"—still bearing some of her old sorrows in her lean face, now reduced to a pleasanter tone by the artful hand of plenty.
"This young man wants May; can you spare her?" said Peter, not giving Eli a show at performing that part of his simple playing in courtship. "I'll speak for him, Kate. He's a mighty good boy, and May might do a thousand times worse."
Eli sat like a docile lamb before the altar of matrimonial sacrifice, humbly waiting his fate. Kate looked at him. He looked at Kate. Peter looked at both. All silent. Intense was Eli's emotions—so tense that he was like a pine board in the hot sun ready to warp with the intensity of the heat that perforated the skin on his brow, sending forth scalding globes of perspiration.
"I re—I gu—how did you tell me to say it?" she said, turning to Peter for intelligence on the right word.
"May," answered Peter, rubbing.
"I may—no, that's not it," she said, appealing to him.
"You may!" suggested Peter again.
"You may, Mr. Jerey," she said, finally hitting upon the proper phrase that would express her answer.
She had no more than uttered the word, than Eli leaped to his feet, dropped his cane, and caught Mrs. Dieman in his sweeping arms, and hugged her powerfully. It could not be told whether he exercised a son's indubitable right to kiss her, for the very momentous reason that his plug hat fell off at the critical moment when he appeared to be performing that gracious act. But, in any event, his future mother-in-law grunted from the grateful embracing that she underwent in the clasp of Eli. Finding his prized and fashionable hat had toppled off with imminent danger of being crushed by ruthless feet, he hastily released her, picked up his hat, put it on his head again, with such grandiloquent precipitation that he made things in the room look as if they were going up in a whirlwind.
After catching his breath, he glanced inquiringly toward the parlor. There he saw May sitting in a very deep and richly decorated chair perusing a novel, which she, since her coming out, had been taught was a beautiful source of pastime for young ladies of noble families. But Eli saw not the novel; neither did he see the pencil and tablet on May's lap, with which she had been instructed to provide herself to jot down the things that impressed her most when reading; nor did he see with what beautiful material she was dressed. All that he saw was the plump little face of May, a face that had no equal, to him; and all that she saw was the tall Eli racing toward her, like a galloping giraffe, with love-lit eyes, with grinning teeth, with plug hat on his head. Then—
"May! May! May!"
The world turned upside-down, and he plunged headlong with May in his arms, into the laughing stars that flecked his heaven of delight.
In the sudden onrush, May dropped her novel, dropped her pencil, dropped her note book; and Eli dropped his hat, which the youngest child momentarily toddled to, and took his seat within it as contentedly as if it had been placed there for his especial enjoyment. Eli minded nothing, not even the cloud of children that rose around him like fairies in astonishment at a bogie man come among them.
But the whirlwind that Eli started soon abated, and its wreck and ruin was more noticeable upon May than any one else; for, in his awkwardness, he had loosened her hair, till it fell down around her waist, and mussed her pink messaline till it needed ironing afresh, and caused a burning place on the one cheek which he pressed so closely to the rough twill of his coat collar, that she seemed to be aflame with indignation. She was not indignant, however. Her little pout was only a sign of shame-faced happiness brought about by the astonishing behavior of Eli in the presence of her family; which she declared was shameful familiarity.
"Why, May," said Eli, in support of his actions, "your mother says yes, and your daddy says yes, and I say yes; now, what do you say—I don't care who knows!"
"I don't care what they say, you had no business to do it," she answered, looking black at him, as she was brushing out some of the wrinkle marks in her dress.
"Is it yes, or no, May? Tell me quick, before I go hang myself!" he cried in his anguish.
"I haven't said no, Eli," replied May, as she attempted to put up her hair, and blushing from ear to ear.
"Is it yes, May?" said Eli, with eyes brightening. "I want to know."
May glanced up pensively, with a hairpin between her lips cutting a smile in two.
"Yes," she answered, as the pin fell to the floor, and her hair straggled down again.
"I am happy, May," he replied; "now will you excuse me for my impetuosity?"
May was gathering up her hair again when Eli said this. She turned to him with a smothered laugh, and remarked: "You are all right, Eli; I am happy."
Whereat, both being perfectly agreed as to their feelings and opinions, Eli looked about for his hat, preparatory to taking his departure.
"Well, Lord bless us! Look here, May!" he exclaimed, standing over the youngster, sitting in his hat.
Then, bursting into a loud guffaw, he stooped down, grasped the hat by the side rims, and lifted it up, baby and all, and ventured forth to the throne room. As he lifted the burden up before him, the baby laid hold of his string necktie with one hand and his collar with the other, as a support to his precarious position. In which position Eli, hat, and baby proceeded, Eli singing a foolish ditty, till they arrived at Peter's seat, by the side of whom sat Mrs. Dieman.
Eli stood before them a moment that they might see the load and the oddity of the situation of baby. They laughed; Eli laughed; baby laughed. He swung the hat this way and that, up and down, and bounced him a little. Eli blowed a tune of coo-coo at him, then whistled, and sang snatches of songs, of all of which baby seemed highly appreciative, judging from his looks. Then—the bottom fell out of the hat, and through it, feet foremost, shot the baby like a stone, and fell in a squalling bundle on the floor at Eli's feet.
At the outcry that followed, all the other children came rushing in and circled around the party; and laughed and clapped their hands in great glee at the mishap to the baby and the hat. Eli picked up the crying child, and stroked his hair, and cooed to him. The child placed his little arms around Eli's neck, and sobbed till his grief was gone. And this was the little child that touched his father's hard face with his little hands, saying da-da; but perhaps he will never remember that day.
Procuring a new hat from Peter, one that fit him illy, Eli tore himself away from this man's dominions, encircled by Billy Barton's family, to return some other day for a beautifully appointed wedding with his beautiful May.
The world may laugh and sneer at such as Eli Jerey; but, after all, in such as he may be found the man who will make marriage a heaven to a poor man's daughter, raised as she was in poverty, and lifted by chance to a higher plane of living.