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Well, I couldn't help smiling, though I knew that it was unmannerly of me to do so. The scene was really too ludicrous for anything. Mr. Finkelstein appeared a little embarrassed when he spied me looking at him, and stopped his playing, and said rather sheepishly, with somewhat of the air of a naughty child surprised in mischief, “Vail, Kraikory, I suppose you tink I'm crazy, hey? Vail, I cain't help it; I'm so fond of music. But look at here, Kraikory; don't you say nodings to Solly about it, will you? Dere's a goot poy. Don't you mention it to him. He vouldn't naifer let me hear de laist of it.”
I having pledged myself to secrecy, Mr. Finkelstein picked the hand-organ up, and locked it away out of sight in a closet. But after we had had our dinner, he brought it forth again, and, not without some manifest hesitation, addressed me thus: “Look at here, Kraikory; dere's a proverp which says dot man is a creature of haibits. Vail, Kraikory, I got a sort of a haibit to lie down and take a short naip every day aifter my meals. And say, Kraikory, you know how fond of music I am, don't you? I simply dote on it, Kraikory. I guess maybe I'm de fondest man of music in de United States of America. And—vail, look at here, Kraikory, as you ain't got nodings in particular to do, I tought maybe you vouldn't mind to sit here a few minutes, and—and shust turn dot craink a little while I go to sleep—hey?”
I assented willingly; so Mr. Finkelstein lay down upon his lounge, and I began to turn the crank, thereby grinding out the rollicking measures of Finnigan's Ball.
“My kracious, Kraikory, you do it splendid,” the old gentleman exclaimed, by way of encouragement. “You got a graind tailent for music, Kraikory.” Then I heard him chuckle softly to himself, and murmur, “I cain't help it, I aictually cain't. I must haif my shoke.” Very soon he was snoring peacefully.
Well, to cut a long story short, my first day at Mr. Finkelstein's passed smoothly by, and so did the next and the next. In a surprisingly short time I became quite accustomed to my new mode of life, and all sense of strangeness wore away. Every morning I opened and tidied up the shop; then we breakfasted; then the routine of the day began. As Mr. Flisch had predicted, I had a very easy time of it indeed. Every afternoon I played the hand-organ, while Mr. Finkelstein indulged in his siesta; almost every forenoon I tended the store, while he and Mr. Flisch amused themselves with pinochle in the parlor. Mr. Marx and his wife dined with us I should think as often as once a week; Henrietta surpassed herself on these occasions, and I came to entertain as high an opinion of her skill in cookery as my employer could have wished.
Between little Rosalind Earle and myself a great friendship rapidly sprang up. On week-days we caught only fleeting glimpses of each other; but almost every Sunday I used to go to see her at her home, which was in Third Avenue, a short distance above our respective places of business. Her father, who had been a newspaper reporter, was dead; and her mother, a pale sad lady, very kind and sweet, went out by the day as a dressmaker and seampstress. They were wretchedly poor; and that was why little Rosalind, who ought to have worn pinafores, and gone to school, had to work for her living at Mr. Flisch's, like a grownup person. But her education proceeded after a fashion, nevertheless. In her spare moments during the day she would study her lessons, and in the evening at home she would say them to her mother. Though she was my junior by a year and more, she was already doing compound interest in arithmetic, whereas I had never got beyond long division. This made me feel heartily ashamed of myself, and so I invested a couple of dollars in some second-hand schoolbooks, and thenceforth devoted my spare moments to study, too. Almost every Sunday, as I have said, I used to go to see her; and if the weather was fine, her mother would take us for an outing in Central Park, where we would have a jolly good time racing each other over the turf of the common, or admiring the lions and tigers and monkeys and hippopotamuses, at the Arsenal. Yes, I loved little Rosalind very dearly, and every minute that I spent at her side was the happiest sort of a minute for me.
Mr. Finkelstein, when he first noticed me poring over my school-books in the shop, expressed the liveliest kind of satisfaction with my conduct.
“Dot's right, Kraikory,” he cried. “Dot's maiknificent. Go ahead mit your education. Dere ain't nodings like it. A first-claiss education—vail, sir, it's de graindest advantage a feller can haif in de baittle of life. Yes, sir, dot's a faict. You go ahead mit your education, and you study real hard, and you'll get to be—why, you might get to be an alderman, no mistake about it. But look at here, Kraikory; tell me; where you got de books, hey? You bought 'em? You don't say so? Vail, what you pay for dem, hey, Kraikory? Two tollars! Two aictual tollars! My kracious! Vail, look at here, Kraikory; I like to make you a little present of dem books, so here's a two tollar pill to reimburse you. Oh! dot's all right. Don't mention it. Put it in de baink. Do what you please mit it. I got anudder.” And every now and then during the summer he would inquire, “Vail, Kraikory, how you getting on mit your education? Vail, I suppose you must know pretty much aiferydings by dis time, hey? Vail, now I give you a sum. If I can buy fife barrels of aipples for six tollars and a quowter, how much will seventeen barrels of potatoes coast me, hey?... Ach, I was only shoking, was I? Vail, dot's a faict; I was only shoking; and you was pretty smart to find it out. But now, shoking aside, I tell you what you do. You keep right on mit your education, and you study real hard, and you'll get to be—why, you might get to be as big a man as Horace Greeley, aictually.” Horace Greeley was a candidate for the presidency that year, and he had no more ardent partisan than my employer.
After the summer had passed, and September came, Mr. Finkelstein called me into the parlor one day, and began, “Now, look at here, Kraikory; I got somedings important to talk to you about. I been tinking about dot little maitter of your education a good deal lately; and I talked mit Solly about it, and got his advice; and at laist I made up my mind dot you oughter go to school. You got so much aimbition about you, dot if you get a first-claiss education while you're young, you might get to be vun of de biggest men in New York City aifter you're grown up. Vail, me and Solly, we talked it all ofer, and we made up our mind dot you better go to school right avay.
“Vail, now I tell you what I do. I found out de public schools open for de season next Monday morning. Vail, next Monday morning I take you up to de public school in Fifty-first Street, and I get you aidmitted. And now I tell you what I do. If you study real hard, and get A-number-vun marks, and cratchuate all right when de time comes—vail, den I send you to college! Me and Solly, we talked it all ofer, and dot's what we made up our minds we oughter do. Dere ain't nodings like a good education, Kraikory; you can bet ten tousand tollars on dot. When I was your age I didn't haif no chaince at vun; and dot's why I'm so eeknorant. But now you got de chaince, Kraikory; and you go ahead and take advaintage of it. My kracious! When I see you cratchuate from college, I'll be so prout I von!t know what to do.”
I leave you to form your own opinion of Mr. Finkelstein's generosity, as well as of the gratitude that it inspired in me. Next Monday morning I entered the public school in Fifty-first Street, and a little less than two years later—namely, in the spring of 1874—I graduated. I had studied “real hard,” and got “A-number-vun” marks; Mr. Finkelstein was as good as his word, and that same spring I passed the examinations for admission to the Introductory Class of the College of the City of New York.
Well, there! In a couple of sentences I have skipped over as many years; and not one word about the hero of my story!
“But what,” I can hear you ask, “what of your Uncle Florimond in all this time? Had you given up your idea of going to him? had you forgotten your ideal of him—had he ceased to be a moving force in your life?”
No; to each of these questions my answer must be a prompt and emphatic no.
I had not by any means given up my idea of going to him; but I had, for reasons that seemed good, put off indefinitely the day of my departure. Two or three weeks after my arrival at Mr. Finkelstein's I wrote Uncle Florimond a letter, and told him of the new turn that my affairs had taken. I did not say anything about my Uncle Peter's treatment of me, because I felt somehow reluctant to let him know how unjust and unkind his own sister's son, my own father's brother, could be, and because, also, I thought it would be scarcely fair and above-board for me to tell tales, now that our bygones were bygones. I simply said that I had left Norwich, and come to New York, and gone into business; and that my purpose was to earn a lot of money just as quickly as I could, and then to set sail for France.
I received no answer from him till about six months afterward; and in this he said that he was glad I meant to come to France, but he thought it was a pity that I should go into business so early in my youth, for that must of course interrupt my education.
I hastened to reply that, since I had written my former letter to him, my outlook had again changed; that my kind and liberal employer had sent me to school, where I was working as hard as I knew how, with the promise of a college course before me if I showed proper zeal and aptitude.
I had to wait more than a year now for his next epistle; but it came at last one day towards the close of the vacation that intervened between my graduation from school and the beginning of my career at college.
“I have been ill and in trouble, my dear little nephew,” he wrote, “since the reception of thy last letter so good and so gentle; and I have lacked both the force and the heart to write to thee. At this moment at length it goes better; and I seize the first occasion to take my pen. The news of the progress which thou makest in thy studies gives me an infinite pleasure, as does also thy hope of a course at the university. And though I become from more to more impatient to meet thee, and to see with my proper eyes the grandson of my adored sister, I am happy, nevertheless, to force myself to wait for an end so precious. That thou mayst become a gentleman well-instructed and accomplished, it is my sincere desire; for it is that, I am sure of it, which my cherished sister would most ardently have wished. Be then industrious; study well thy lessons; grow in spirit as in body; remember that, though thy name is different, thou art the last of the la Bourbonnaye. I astonish myself, however, that thy Uncle Peter does not charge himself with the expenses. Is it that he has not the means? I have believed him very rich.
“Present my respects to thy worthy patron, that good Finkelstein, who, though bourgeois and shopkeeper, I must suppose is a man of heart; and think ever with tenderness of thy old devoted uncle, de la Bourbonnaye.
“Paris, the 3 7ember, 1874.”
7ember was Uncle Florimond's quaint French way of writing September,Sept,as you know, being French for seven.
And now as to those other questions that you have asked me—so far was I from having forgotten my ideal of him, so far was he from having ceased to be a moving force in my life, I have not any doubt whatever that the thought of my relationship with him, and my desire to appear to advantage in his eyes, had a great deal to do with fostering my ambition as a scholar. Certainly, the nephew of Florimond Marquis de la Bourbonnaye must not let any boy of ordinary lineage stand above him in his classes; and then, besides, how much more highly would Uncle Florimond consider me, if, when we met, he found not an untutored ignoramus, but, in his own words, “a gentleman well-instructed and accomplished!”
During the two years that I have skipped over in such summary-fashion, my friendship with little Rosalind Earle had continued as active and as cordial as it had been at the beginning. She had grown quite tall, and even prettier than ever, with her oval face and olive skin, her soft brown hair and large dark eyes, and was really almost a young lady. She had kept pace with me in my studies also, I having acted as her teacher. Every Sunday at her home I would go over with her all my lessons for the past week, imparting to her as intelligently as I was able what I myself had learned. This would supply her with subject-matter for her study during the week to come; so that on the following Sunday she would be ready for a new send-off. This was capital drill for me, because, in order to instruct another, I had to see that my own knowledge was exact and thorough. And then, besides, I enjoyed these Sunday afternoon conferences with Rosalind so heartily, that they lightened the labor of learning, and made what to a boy is usually dull grind and drudgery, to me an abundant source of pleasure. Rosalind retained her situation at Mr. Flisch's, but her salary had been materially increased. She was only thirteen years old, yet she earned the dazzling sum of six dollars every week. This was because she had acquired the art of retouching negatives, and had thus trebled her value to her employer.
But I had made another friend during those two years, whose influence upon my life at that time was perhaps even greater than Rosalind's. Among my classmates at the school in Fifty-first Street there was a boy named Arthur Ripley, older than I, taller, stronger, a very handsome fellow, with blue eyes and curling hair, very bright, and seemingly very good-natured, whom I had admired privately from the moment I had first seen him. He, however, had taken no notice of me; and so we had never got especially well acquainted, until one day I chanced to hear him speak a few words of French; and his accent was so good that I couldn't help wondering how he had come by it.
“Say, then, Ripley,” I demanded, in the Gallic tongue, but with Saxon bluntness, “how does it happen that you speak French so well? Your pronunciation is truly extraordinary.”
“And why not?” he retorted. “I have spoken it since my childhood. My grandmother—the mother of my father—was a French lady.”
“Hold,” cried I. “Really? And so was mine.”
Thereupon we fell into conversation. We got on famously together. From that hour we were intimates. I was admitted into Ripley's “set,” which included all the nicest boys of the school; and Ripley invited me to his home, which, with its beautiful pictures and books and furnishings, and general air of comfort and refinement, struck me as the loveliest place I had ever set my foot in, and where his mother and father made me feel instantly and entirely at my ease. They talked French to me; and little by little drew from me the whole story of my life; and when I had done, “Ah! my poor little one,” said his mother, with a tenderness that went straight to my heart, “how thy lot has been hard! Come, let me kiss thee.” And, “Hold, my little man,” said his father. “You are a good and brave boy, and I am glad that my son has found such a comrade. Moreover, do you know, you come of one of the most illustrious families not only of France, but even of Europe? The la Bourbonnaye are of the most ancient nobility, and in each generation they have distinguished themselves. At Paris there is an important street named for them. A Marquis de la Bourbonnaye won great celebrity as an admiral under Louis xv.; another, his son, I believe, was equally renowned as a royalist general during the revolution.”
“Yes, sir,” I put in, delighted at his familiarity with the history of our house; “they were the father and the grandfather of my grandmother.”
“But I had supposed that the family was extinct. You teach me that it survives still in the person of your Uncle Florimond. I am content of it.”
Arthur Ripley and I became as intimate as only boys, I think, can become. We were partners in tops, marbles, décalcomanies, and postage stamps. We spent the recess hour together every day. We walked home together every afternoon. We set out pleasure hunting almost every Saturday—now to watch or to take part in a base-ball match, now to skate in Central Park, now to row on the Harlem River, now to fish in the same muddy stream, where, to the best of my recollection, we never so much as got a single bite. He was “Rip,” to me, and to him I was “Greg.” We belonged, as has been said, to the same set at school; at college we joined the same debating society, and pledged ourselves to the same Greek-letter fraternity.
He was the bravest, strongest fellow I ever knew; a splendid athlete; excelling in all sports that required skill or courage. He was frankness, honesty, generosity personified; a young prince whom I admired and loved, who compelled love and admiration from everybody who knew him. In the whole school there was not a boy whom Ripley couldn't whip; he could have led us all in scholarship as well, only he was careless and rather lazy, and didn't go in for high standing, or that sort of thing. He wrote the best compositions, however, and made the best declamations. I tell you, to hear him recite Spartacus's address to the gladiators—“Ye call me chief, and ye do well to call him chief who for twelve long years has met upon the bloody sands of the arena every shape of man and beast that the broad empire of Rome could furnish”—I tell you, it was thrilling. Ripley's father was a lawyer; and he meant to be a lawyer, too. So far as he was responsible for it, Ripley's influence over me was altogether good. What bad came of my association with him, I alone was to blame for.
Some bad did come, and now I must tell you about it.
He and the other boys of our circle were gentlemen's sons, who lived with their parents in handsome houses, wore fine clothes, had plenty of pocket-money, and generally cut a very dashing figure; whereas I—I was the dependent of a petty Third-Avenue Jewish shopkeeper; I had scarcely any pocket-money whatever; and as for my clothes—my jackets were usually threadbare, and my trousers ornamented at an obtrusive point with two conspicuous patches, that Henrietta had neatly inserted there—trousers, moreover, which had been originally designed for the person of Mr. Marx, but which the skillful Henrietta had cut down and adjusted to my less copious proportions.
And now the bad, if perhaps not unnatural, result of all this was to pique my vanity, and to arouse in me a certain false and quite wrong and improper shame of my condition. I was ashamed because I could not spend money as my companions did; I was ashamed of my shabby clothing; I was ashamed of my connection with Mr. Finkelstein; I was even a little ashamed of my intimacy with Rosalind Earle, for she too occupied a very humble station in the world.
And, as the obverse of this false shame, I became inflated with a pride that was equally false and wrong. I was as good a gentleman as anybody, if not better. I was the dependent of a Third-Avenue shopkeeper, true enough. But I was also the nephew of the Marquis de la Bourbonnaye. And I am afraid that I got into the habit of bragging a good deal about my relationship with that aristocratic person. Anyhow, my state of mind was not by any means a wholesome or a happy one; and by and by it bore practical consequences that were not wholesome or happy either.
Arthur Ripley, as I have said, meant to be a lawyer. He was full of enthusiasm for his future profession, and never tired of talking about it. In his room at home he had three or four big law-books, bound in yellow calf-skin, which he used to read for his pleasure, just as we other boys would read our story-books; and he seemed to know their contents by heart. At least, we gave him the credit for knowing them by heart. He passed among us for little less than a Solomon of legal wisdom. His opinion upon a legal question had, to our thinking, the authority of a judgment from the bench; and if one of our number had got into a legal difficulty of any sort, I am sure he would have gone to Ripley for aid and counsel as readily and as confidently as to the most eminent jurist at the bar.
This being premised, you will easily understand the impression made upon me by the following conversation which I had with Ripley one day in the early summer of 1875.
We had just passed our examinations for promotion from the Introductory to the Freshman class at college, and our consequent vacation had just begun. I was minding the shop, while Messrs. Flisch and Finkelstein smoked their cigars and played their pinochle in the back room, and Ripley was keeping me company. We had been talking about my grandmother; and presently Ripley queried: “Look here, Greg, she was a woman of some property, wasn't she? I mean to say she lived in good style, had plenty of money, was comfortable and well-to-do, hey?”
“Why, yes,” I answered, “she was pretty well-off—why, about as well as anybody in Norwich Town, I suppose. Why do you ask?”
“Because—what I should like to know is, why didn't she leave anything to you?”
“Why, how could she? I was only her grandchild. My Uncle Peter was her son. Don't you see?”
“But that doesn't make any difference. Your father being dead, you were, equally with your uncle, her legal heir and next-of-kin. And as long as she was so fond of you, it seems kind of funny she didn't provide for you in any way.”
“What do you mean by her legal heir and next-of-kin?”
“Don't you know that? Why, a legal heir and next-of-kin is a person entitled to take under the statutes of descent and distribution. For instance, if your grandmother had died intestate, you would have come in for half of all the property she left, your Uncle Peter taking the other half. See the point?”
“Can't say I do. You're too high-up for me, with your legal slang. What does intestate mean?”
“Why, intestate—why, that means without having made a will. When a person dies without leaving a will, he is said to have died intestate.”
“Well, I guess my grandmother died intestate, then. I don't believe she left any will.”
“She didn't? Why, if she didn't leave a will—Oh! but she must have. Look here, Greg, this is serious. Are you sure she didn't?”
“O, no! of course I'm not sure. I never thought of the matter before, and so I can't be sure. But I don't believe she did.”
“But, Greg, if she didn't—if she didn't leave a will, disinheriting you, and bequeathing everything to Peter—man alive, what are you doing here in old Finkelstein's jewelry shop? Why, Greg, you're rich. You're absolute owner of half of her estate.”
“O, no! I'm perfectly sure she never did that. If she made any will at all, she didn't disinherit me, and give everything to Uncle Peter. She cared a great deal more for me than she did for Uncle Peter. I'm sure she never made a will favoring him above me. I always supposed that she had died, as you call it, intestate; and so, he being her son, the property had descended to him in the regular course of events.”
“But don't I tell you that it wouldn't have descended to him? It would have descended to both of you in equal shares. Here's the whole business in a nut-shell: either she did leave a will, cutting you off with a shilling; or else you're entitled to fifty cents in every dollar that she owned.”
“But I have never received a penny. If what you say is true, how do you account for that?”
“There's just the point. If your idea about the will is correct, your Uncle Peter must be a pretty rogue indeed. He's been playing a sharp game, Greg, and cheating you out of your rights. And we can make it hot enough for him, I tell you. We can compel him to divide up; and inside of a month you'll be rolling in wealth.”
“Oh! come, Rip,” I protested, “fen fooling a fellow about a thing like this.”
“But I'm not fooling. I never was more in earnest in all my life. It's as plain as the nose on your face. There are no two ways about it. Ask anybody.”
“But—but then—but then I'm rich—rich!”
“That's what you are, unless, by a properly executed will, your grandmother disinherited you.”
“But I tell you I know she never did that. It stands to reason that she didn't.”
“Well, sir, then it only remains for you to claim your rights at the hands of your amiable uncle, and to open a bank account.”
“O my goodness! O, Rip! Oh! it's impossible. It's too—too glorious to be true,” I cried, as a realizing sense of my position rushed upon me. My heart was pounding like a hammer against my ribs; my breath was coming short and swift; my brain was in a whirl. I felt dazzled and bewildered; and yet I felt a wondrous, thrilling joy, a great glow of exultation, that sent me dancing around the shop like a maniac, wringing my hands in self-congratulation.
I was rich! Only think, I was rich! I could take my proper station now, and cut my proper figure in the world. Good-by, patched trousers, good-by, shop, good-by all such low, humiliating things. Welcome opulence, position, purple and fine linen. Hurrah! I would engage a passage upon the very first, the very fastest steamer, and sail away to that brilliant, courtly country where my Uncle Florimond, resplendent in the trappings of nobility, awaited me with open arms, there to live in the state and fashion that would become the nephew of a marquis. I would burn my plebeian ships behind me. I would do this, that, and the other wonderful thing. I saw it all in a single radiant glance.
But what you see more plainly than anything else, I did not see at all.
I did not see that I was accepting my good fortune in an altogether wrong and selfish spirit. I did not see that my first thought in my prosperity ought to have been for those who had stood by me in my adversity. I did not see that my first impulse ought to have been now to make up in some wise to my friend and benefactor, Mr. Finkelstein, for his great goodness and kindness to me. I did not see that I was an arrant little snob, an ungrateful little coxcomb. A mixture of false shame and evil pride had puffed me up like so much inflammable gas, which—Ripley having unwittingly applied the spark to it—had now burst into flame.
“O, Rip!” I cried again, “it's too glorious to be true.”
“Well, now,” cut in Ripley, “let's be practical. What you want to do is step into your kingdom. Well, to-day's Saturday, isn't it? Well, now, I propose that day after to-morrow, Monday, you and I go to Norwich. There we can make a search in the Probate Office, and find out for certain just how the facts stand. Then we can come back here and put the case in the hands of my father, who's a lawyer, and who will have a guardian appointed for you, and do everything else that's necessary. See? Now, the question is, Will you go to Norwich with me Monday night?”
“Won't I, though!” was my response.
And then Rip and I just sat there in the shop, and talked, and talked, and talked, planning out my life for the future, and wondering exactly how rich I was going to be. We surmised that my grandmother could not possibly have left less than a hundred thousand dollars, in which event I should come in for a cool fifty thousand. We employed the strongest language at our command to stigmatize my Uncle Peter's rascality in having for so long a time kept me out of my just rights; and we gloated in imagination over his chagrin and his discomfiture when we should compel him to render an account of his stewardship and to disgorge my portion of our inheritance. I declared it as my intention to go to my Uncle Florimond in Paris as soon as the affair was finally settled; and Ripley agreed that that would be the appropriate thing for me to do—“Though, of course,” he added, “I shall feel awfully cut up at our separation. Still, it's undoubtedly the thing for you to do. It's what I would do if I were in your place. And, O, Scottie! Greg, won't old Finkelstein and your other Hebrew friends open their eyes?”
“Won't they, though!” I returned, reveling in fancy over their astonishment and their increased respect for me, after I should have explained to them my sudden and tremendous rise in the world. But in this particular I was destined to disappointment; for when, as soon as Ripley had gone home, I joined Mr. Finkelstein in the parlor, and conveyed to him the joyful information, he, having heard me through without any sign of especial wonder, remarked:—
“Vail, Kraikory, I suppose you vant me to conkraitulate you, hey? Vail, it's a graind ting to be rich, Kraikory, and no mistake about it. And I shust tell you dis, Kraikory: dere ain't nobody in de United States of America vould be glaidder if ainy goot luck haippened to you, as I vould be. I'm awful fond of you, Kraikory, and dere ain't nodings what I vant more as to see you haippy and prosperous. De only trouble is, Kraikory, dot I ain't so sure as dis vould be such awful goot luck, aifter all. For, to tell you de honest troot, Kraikory, I don't like de vay you take it. No, I aictually don't. You're too stuck-up and prout about it, Kraikory; and I hate to see you stuck-up and prout. It ain't nice to be prout, Kraikory; it ain't what you call manly; and I simply hate to see you do ainydings what ain't nice and manly—I'm so fond of you, don't you understand? Den, ainyhow, Kraik-ory, de Bible says dot prite goes before destruction, and a howty spirit before a fall; and dot's a solemn faict, Kraikory; dey do, shust as sure as you're alife. De Bible's shust exaictly right, Kraikory; you can bet ten tousand tollars on it. Why, I myself, I seen hundreds of fellers get stuck-up and prout already; and den de first ting dey knew, dey bust all to pieces like a goot-for-nodings boiler. Yes, siree, if I was as prout as you are, Kraikory, I'd feel afraid.
“No, Kraikory, I don't like de vay you take it, and I really tink if you get dis money what you're talking about, I really tink it'll spoil you, Kraikory; and dot's why I cain't conkraitulate you de vay you vant me to. You ain't been like yourself for a pretty long while now already, Kraikory. I ain't said nodings about it; but I seen it all de same; and Solly seen it, and Heddie, she seen it, and Mr. Flisch seen it, and Henrietta seen it, and we all seen it, and we all felt simply fearful about it. And now I tink it shust needs dis money to spoil you altogedder. I hate to say ainydings to hurt your feelings, Kraikory, but dot's my honest opinion; and me and you, we'd oughter be goot enough friends to talk right out to each udder like fader and son. De faict is, Kraikory, I've loafed you shust exaictly de same as if we was fader and son; and dot's de reason it makes me feel so awful to see you get stuck-up and prout. But you was a goot boy down deep, Kraikory, and I guess you'll turn out all right in de end, if dis here money don't spoil you. You got a little foolishness about you, which is necheral to your age. When I was your age I was a big fool, too.
“Vail, and so, shust as soon as de maitter's settled, you're going to Europe, are you, to live mit your Uncle Florimond in Pairis? Vail, dot's all right, Kraikory, if you like to do it. I ain't got no pusiness to make ainy obshections, dot's sure. All I got to say, Kraikory, is dis: Your Unde Florimond, he may be an awful fine feller, and I guess likely he is; but I don't know as he's aifer done much of ainydings for you; and if I was in your place, I'd feel sorter sorry to stop my education, and leaf de old friends what I was certain of, and go to a new friend what I hadn't naifer tried; dot's all. Vail, if you vant to go, I suppose you'll go; and Solly and me and Henrietta and dot little kirl ofer by Mr. Flisch, vail, we'll have to get along mitout you de best vay we can. I guess dot little Rosie, I guess she'll feel pretty baid about it, Kraikory; but I don't suppose dot'l make much difference to you, to shush by de vay you talk. Poor little ting! She's awful fond of you, Kraikory, and I guess she'll feel pretty lonesome aifter you've gone avay. Oh! vail, I suppose she von't die of it. Dere are plenty udder young fellers in dis vorld, and I don't suppose she'll cry herself to dead for you. All de same, I guess she'll feel pretty baid first off; but dot's your business, and not mine.
“Vail, let me see. To-day's Saturday; and you're going to Nawvich Monday night. Vail, dot's all right. I ain't got nodings to say against dot. I shust give you vun little piece of advice, dough, Kraikory, and dot is dis: If I was in your place, I vouldn't feel too awful sure of dis here money, until I'd aictually got hold of it, for fear I might be disappointed. Dere's a proverp which goes, 'Dere's a great mainy slips between de cup and de lips,' Kraikory; and dot's a solemn faict, which I advice you to remember.”
This sermon of Mr. Finkelstein's made me feel very sore indeed; but I felt sorer still next day, when Rosalind—whom I was calling upon, and to whom I had just communicated the momentous news—when Rosalind, with flushed cheeks and flashing eyes, assailed me thus:—
0159
“O, Gregory Brace! Oh! shame on you. Oh! I don't know you. I can't believe it's you. I can't believe it's the same boy at all. Such selfishness! Such ingratitude! Such a proud hard heart! It's been as much as anyone could do to put up with you for ever and ever so long, you've been so vain and so conceited and everything; but this just caps the climax. Oh! think of poor Mr. Finkelstein. He's been so good and generous to you, and so fond of you; and he's sent you to school and college, and given you every advantage he possibly could; and you owe him so much, and you're under such great obligations to him, for he took you right out of the streets, and gave you a home, and made a son of you, instead of a servant—yes, he did—and now the very first thing that you propose to do, as soon as you're able to, is to leave him, to abandon him—oh! you ungrateful thing—and go to your horrid old French uncle, who, I don't believe cares the snap of his finger for you. He is horrid, too; and I hope he'll just treat you horribly, just to punish you. And I hope that Arthur Ripley is mistaken, and that you won't get a single penny from your Uncle Peter, but just a good whipping to take you down; and I hope you'll have to come back to Mr. Finkelstein, and humbly beg his pardon; yes, I do, with all my heart and soul. I'd just like to see you have to come down from your high horse and eat humble pie for a while; yes, I would. The idea! Desert Mr. Finkelstein! You, who might have been begging in the streets, except for him! I should think you'd be ashamed to look me in the face. Oh! you mean to give him a good round sum of money, do you, to pay him for what he's done for you? Why, how very liberal and noble you are, to be sure! As though money could pay for what Mr. Finkelstein has done for you! As though money were what he wants from you, and not love and affection! O, Gregory! you've changed so that I don't know you, and I don't like you at all any more, and I don't care to be friends with you any more, and you needn't come to see me any more. There!”
Yes, I felt very sore and very angry. What Rosalind said only served to exasperate and embitter me, and to make me grit my teeth, and pursue all the more doggedly my own selfish purpose.
Well, on Monday night, according to our agreement, Ripley and I set out for Norwich, passengers aboard the very same steamboat, the City of Lawrence, that I had come to New York by, three years before; and bright and early Tuesday morning we reached our destination.
I only wish I could spare a page to tell you something of the emotions that I felt as we came in sight of the dingy old town. It had not changed the least bit in the world; it was like the face of an old familiar friend; it called up before me my own self of former years; it brought a thousand memories surging upon me, and filled my heart with a strong, unutterable melancholy, that was yet somehow indescribably sweet and tender.
But Ripley and I had no time for the indulgence of sentiment. “Now, then, where's the Court House? Where's the Probate Office?” he demanded as soon as we had set foot upon the dry land. “We must pitch right in, without losing a moment.”
So I led him to the Probate Court; and there he “pitched right in” with a vengeance, examining the indices to lots of big written books of records, while I stood by to hand them to him, and to put them back in their places when he had finished with them—until, after an hour or so, he announced, “Well, Greg, you're right. She left no will.”
Then he continued: “Now we must find out the date upon which Peter took out his Letters of Administration, and also whether he had himself constituted your guardian, as he most likely did; and then we'll have all the facts we need to establish your claims, and put you in possession.”
Thereupon he attacked another set of big written volumes, and with these he was busy as long as two hours more. In the end, “By Jingo, Greg,” he cried, “here's a state of things! He didn't take out any Letters of Administration at all.”
“Well,” I queried, not understanding the meaning of this circumstance, “what of that? What does that signify?”
“Why, that signifies an even darker and more systematic piece of fraud than I had suspected. In order to cheat you out of your share, he failed to comply with the law. He didn't go through the proper formalities to get control of her property, but simply took possession of it without authority. And now we've got him completely at our mercy. We could prosecute him criminally, if we liked. We could send him to State Prison. Oh! won't we make him hop? I say, Greg, do you want to have some fun?”
“How? What way?”
“Well, sir, if you want to have some fun, I'll tell you what let's do. Let's go call on your Uncle Peter, and confront him with this little piece of villainy, and politely ask him to explain it: and then see him squirm. It'll sort of square accounts with him for the number of times he's given you a flogging.”
“O, no! I—I guess we'd better not,” I demurred, faltering at the prospect of a personal encounter with my redoubtable relative.
“But, man alive, you have nothing to fear. We've got the whip-hand of him. Just think, we can threaten him with criminal prosecution. Oh! come on. It'll be the jolliest kind of a lark.”
Well, I allowed myself to be persuaded; and we set forth for Uncle Peter's office, Ripley all agog for excitement, and I trying not to appear afraid. But Uncle Peter wasn't in. An oldish man, who seemed to be in charge, informed us that the Jedge had got a touch of the rheumatiz, and was stayin' hum.
“Never mind,” said Ripley to me; “we'll visit him at his home, we'll beard him in his den. Come along!”
I tried to beg off, but Rip insisted; and I weakly gave in.
If I had been stirred by strong emotions at the sight of Norwich City, conceive how much more deeply I was stirred when we reached Norwich Town—when I saw our old house peeping out from among the great elm-trees that embosomed it—when I actually stood upon its doorstep, with my hand upon the old brass knocker! A strange servant girl opened the door, and to my request to see Judge Brace, replied, “The Jedge is sick in his room.”
“That doesn't matter,” I explained. “You know, I am his nephew. Tell him his nephew Gregory wants to see him.” And I marched boldly through the hall—where the same tall eight-day clock, with its silver face that showed the phases of the moon, was ticking just as it had used to tick as long ago as I could remember—and into the parlor, Ripley following. I say I marched in boldly, yet I was really frightened half to death, as the moment of a face-to-face meeting with my terrible uncle became so imminent. There in the parlor stood the piano upon which my grandmother had labored so patiently to teach me to play. There hung the oil portrait of her, in her robe of cream-colored silk, taken when she was a beautiful young girl, and there, opposite it, above the fireplace, the companion-picture of my Uncle Florimond, in his lieutenant's uniform, with his sword and his crimson sash. Ripley started back a little when he saw this painting, and cried, “For mercy's sake, Greg, who is it? I never saw anything like it. The same eyes, nose, mouth, chin, everything. It's you all over”—thus confirming what my grandmother used to tell me: “Gregory, thou art his living image.” The room was haunted by a myriad dear associations. I forgot the errand that had brought me there; I forgot my fear of meeting Uncle Peter; I forgot all of the recent past, and was carried back to the happiest days of my childhood; and my heart just swelled, and thrilled, and ached. But next instant it gave a great spasmodic leap, and stood still for a second, and then began to gallop ahead like mad, while a perspiration broke out over my forehead; for the maid-servant entered, and said “Please walk upstairs to the Jedge's room.” I really thought I should faint. It was as much as I could do to get my breath. My knees knocked together. My hands shook like those of an aged palsy-stricken man. However, there was no such thing as backing out at this late date; so I screwed my courage to the sticking place, and led Ripley upstairs to Uncle Peter's room.
Uncle Peter was seated in an arm-chair, with his legs, wrapped in a comforter, stretched out on another chair in front of him. He never so much as said how-d'-ye-do? or anything; but at once, scowling at us, asked in his gruffest voice, “Well, what do you want?”
I was so afraid and so abashed that I could hardly speak; but I did contrive to point at Ripley, and gasp, “He—he'll tell you.”
“Well,” snapped Uncle Peter, turning to my spokesman, “go on. State your business.”
“Well, sir,” began Rip—and O, me! as I listened to him, didn't my wonder at his wisdom, and my admiration of his eloquence, mount up a peg?—“well, sir, our business is very simple, and can be stated in a very few words. The amount of it is simply this. My friend Gregory Brace, being the only child of Edward Brace, deceased, who was a son of your mother, Aurore Brace, deceased, is, equally with yourself, the heir and next-of-kin of the said decedent, and would, in the event of her having died intestate, divide share and share alike with you whatever property she left. Now, sir, we have caused a search to be made in the records of the Probate Court of this County, and we find that the said decedent did in fact die intestate. It, therefore, became your duty to petition for Letters of Administration upon her estate; to cite Gregory Brace to show cause why such Letters should not be issued; to cause a guardianad litemto be appointed to act for him in the proceedings; to cause a permanent guardian to be appointed for him after the issuance of said Letters; and then to apply the rents, profits, and income of one undivided half of the estate of said decedent to his support, maintenance and education, allowing what excess there might be to accrue to his benefit. Well, sir, examination proves that you have performed none of these duties; that you have illegally and without warrant or authority possessed yourself of the whole of said estate, thereby committing a fraud upon the said Gregory Brace, and violating the statutes in such case made and provided. And now, sir, we have come here to give you notice that it is our intention to put this matter at once into the hands of an attorney, with directions that he proceed against you, both criminally and civilly.” Uncle Peter heard Ripley through without interrupting, though an ugly smile flickered about his lips. When Rip had done, he lay back in his chair, and gave a loud harsh laugh. Then he drew a long, mock-respectful face, and in a very dry, sarcastic manner spoke as follows:—
“Why, my young friend, you talk like a book. And what profound and varied knowledge of the law you do possess, to be sure! Why, I must congratulate my nephew upon having found such an able and sagacious advocate. And really, I cannot see the necessity of your calling in the services of an attorney, for a person of your distinguished calibre ought certainly to be equal to conducting this dual prosecution, both civil and criminal, single-handed. My sakes alive!” he cried, with a sudden change of tone and bearing. “Do you know what I've a great mind to do with you and your client, my fine young fellow? I've a great mind to cane you both within an inch of your precious lives, and send you skulking away, with your tails between your legs, like two whipped puppies. But, bless me, no! You're neither of you worth the trouble. So I'll spare my rod, and spoil your fancy, by giving you a small measure of information. Now, then, pray tell me, Mr. Advocate, what is your valuation of the property which the 'said decedent' left?”
Ripley, nothing daunted, answered, “At least a hundred thousand dollars.”
“At least a hundred thousand dollars,” repeated Uncle Peter; “well, that's a pretty sum. Well, now, what would you say, my learned friend, if I should tell you that she didn't leave a penny?”
“I should say it was very extraordinary, and that I couldn't believe it. She was the widow of a wealthy man. She lived in good style. It stands to reason that she couldn't have died penniless.”
“And so it does; it stands to reason, as you say; and yet penniless she was when she died, and penniless she had been for ten years before; and if she lived in good style, it was because I paid the bills; and if this young cub, my nephew, wore good clothes and ate good dinners, it was my charity he had to thank. Little by little, stick by stick, my mother disposed of all the property her husband left her, selling the bulk of it to me, and sending the proceeds to France, to help to reconstruct the fortunes of her family there, who were ruined by the revolution. She was a pauper when she died; and that's why I took out no Letters of Administration—because there was nothing to administrate upon. There, now I've told you more than I was under any obligation to; and now, both of you, get out!”
“Come, Greg,” said Rip, “let's go.”
We went. Out of doors, I began, “Well, Rip”—
“Well, Greg,” Rip interrupted, “we've been on a fool's errand, a wild-goose chase, and the less said about it the better.”
“And I—I'm not rich, after all?”
“That's what's the matter, Greg. If she didn't leave any property—you see, we took it for granted that she did—why, there's nothing for you to inherit. It's too bad, old fellow; but then, you're no worse off than you were in the beginning. Anyhow, there's no use crying over spilt milk. Come on; let's take the afternoon train to New York.”
So my fine castle in the air had fallen to pieces like a house of cards. I tell you, it was a mighty crest-fallen young gentleman, in a very humble frame of mind, who sat next to Arthur Ripley that afternoon in the train that was speeding to New York.