For this was a procession of striking boot-blacks and newsboys, and for a time the sun had a corner on "shining."
Banners fluttered to the breeze; quaint standards were held aloft. One bore this strange device, "BLOOD OR PIE," and elicited a peal of laughter whenever it came around a corner.
As far as the interests of their trades were concerned the strikers might have forgotten their grand display within a week, for they were soon underbidding each other, and the price of a "shine" had fallen to the old familiar nickel before the sun was fairly through his job that day.
But they long remembered, perhaps for years, the electric thrill that quivered through the ranks of the procession when a well-known police officer signaled to the vanguard to halt. The boys brought up suddenly, surprised and perhaps a little frightened.
The officer strode up and tapped Ned on the shoulder. Though neither bootblack nor newsboy, Ned was a friend of the strikers. He was a public character among his fellows, and the ruling spirit of this demonstration, which had been long in preparation. He had stood at the head of the column without a qualm, for he had felt in clearing his conscience last night as if he had cleared off all old scores.
Nobody so astonished now as Ned!
"What fur?" he gasped. The officer lifted the warrant slightly out of his breast pocket, and pointing his big thumb toward it replied succinctly,—
"Housebreaking, larceny, and arson."
"My eye!" exclaimed a little newsboy, concentrating an amazed stare upon the diminutive alleged housebreaker, thief, and incendiary.
Ned's heart sank,—all his forebodings realized,—all his scheming in vain! He had much ado to keep from bursting into tears. Yet he was helplessly wondering how they had come to suspect him of knowing aught of the burning of the theatre or the theft of the money and diamonds, when he had so persistently kept his own counsel.
The officer would tell nothing as he hurried the boy along. The gaping procession followed, still mechanically bearing aloft the banners which Ned's own ingenuity had devised and constructed.
"Ye'll find out soon enough," was all his laconic captor would say.
Ned found out only when the warrant was read and Peter Bateman was testifying before the magistrate.
The fat boy's cheeks were flabby and white. A cold perspiration glistened in his hair, which stood up straight and stubbly above his forehead. His eyes seemed very close together indeed. He was greatly frightened and agitated, and the magistrate, who had a keener discrimination of the merits of a good dinner than of the various phases of human nature, encouraged him, and spoke kindly to him whenever he faltered. He seemed very reluctant to give his testimony, and the justice accounted this aversion to accuse his friend a fine trait of character, and regarded Pete yet more favorably.
Pete cast but one glance at Ned. He withdrew his eyes hastily and kept them fixed appealingly on the justice's face. He told his story glibly enough when once fairly at it, for he had spent the interval since he was last before the magistrate in reciting it again and again to himself, that he might not let it vary with the sworn statement which he had previously made.
"I ain't goin' ter git busted now fur perjury—sure pop," he said to himself.
Even in its midst he was wondering how he could tell it at all with the consciousness of Ned's fiery eyes fixed upon him. It would be too much to say that he had no remorse. He did wish that Ned could know that he had not intended to bring affairs to this pass,—that he had only lied, as boys often lie, for petty spite, and had never imagined the far-reaching consequences that had ensued. If Pete had been a receptive subject for a moral lesson he might now have learned what a terrible engine for evil even a diminutive lie can be. But he was only asking himself how could he be expected to foresee such a coincidence as the probable pillage of the theatre, supplemented by the burning of the building.
Still, the realization of all the evil he had wrought came upon him with such crushing force at the end of his story that he burst into tears and convulsive sobs and presented quite an edifying spectacle of sympathizing and grieving friendship.
"Well,—well," said the acute magistrate soothingly, "you have done the best you could,—you are a good boy."
"He's a liar!" Ned flamed out suddenly. "A liar! A liar!"
The next moment Ned saw that this outburst of wrath had done him harm. It seemed that only a turbulent and vicious character would thus meet reluctant accusation with vociferous abuse. The justice coldly and sternly ordered him to be silent. The spectators looked askance at him. Earlier they had not been without sympathy and a hopeful expectation that the boy could show his innocence. At the outset, when informed by the magistrate of his right to counsel at every stage of the proceedings, Ned's prompt refusal to send for a lawyer won him favor, as it indicated an evident belief that his innocence could be easily established without aid. His vehement negative raised a laugh, however, at the expense of the profession, for it was Ned's conviction that lawyers are a pragmatical, exacting tribe, and far more likely to complicate matters than to simplify them.
There was a stir of uncertainty and curiosity when the magistrate asked the little defendant if he wished to make any statement concerning the circumstances in the case and in contradiction of the testimony given against him, informing him at the same time that he could waive making such a statement at present, and that such waiver could not be used against him either now or afterward at his trial. It seemed in evident expectation of an immediate discharge that Ned declined to avail himself of this opportunity to postpone the issue and prepare for it.
In fact he believed he could dissipate the unfortunate impressions which he had created by telling a plain, straightforward story about the scheme to see the play, and what was said by Pete in his fantastic threats while at the window.
"I can tell you all about it in three minutes 'thout no lawyer," he declared, and forthwith plunged tumultuously into the narration.
At this moment a little judicious kindness might have elicited all that the boy had seen and heard. The justice, however, did not encourage him as he had encouraged Pete. He seemed inimical and severe, and when Ned hesitated in small matters glanced at him sharply. He evidently regarded Ned as a case of precocious hoodlum. Once more the frightened boy thought his safety lay in silence. He was only suspected as yet, he argued within himself. Nothing could be proved against him except that he got into the building at the window. He knew that in several of the States boys no older than he was had been convicted of felonies and sentenced to the penitentiary. Therefore he feared that his own extreme youth would be regarded as a very slight palliation of the crime of which he stood accused, and that he might be locking the doors of the State prison upon himself for a long term if he should tell all and his story be disbelieved or misinterpreted.
Instead of the firm, coherent detail of the facts exactly as they had happened, with which he had been proceeding, he began, as these thoughts surged through his mind, to stumble,—to repeat his words, to fall on long, reflective pauses; and finally he ceased abruptly in the middle of a sentence.
The magistrate had occasionally looked up impatiently; he elevated his eyebrows, pursed his lips inquiringly, and now laid down his pen outright.
"Is that all?" he said.
"Naw, sir," Ned admitted, in grievous agitation.
Perhaps his youth and his hard straits and the terrible future which seemed impending over him touched the justice. He gave a little line. He felt that he hardly exceeded the intention of the restrictions of his office in prompting the defendant, helping him out, in view of his youth, inexperience, and friendlessness,—giving him a chance to tell his story and establish, if it might, his innocence.
"Do you want to tell how you saw the play?"
"Yes, sir," said Ned, plucking up heart of grace.
"And how you got out?"
"Got out of the window wher' I got in."
"Do you want to tell why you did not go out at the back door?"
"Didn't know wher' 't wuz," replied Ned.
All these facts were being incorporated in the written statement of Ned's own account of himself, which when finished would be read to him, and which he might sign or not, as he would, but the magistrate would annex the reason for no signature in case he should refuse. It was beginning to take a definite value, and the two returned to this unique method of getting at the facts with renewing spirit. Alas for the next question!
"Do you want to tell why you did not follow the employees to the back door?"
Ned did not answer. His face fell.
The justice looked surprised and disappointed. He returned to the effort.
"You were afraid of being seen by some of them? Was that the reason you did not follow them?"
Ned still was silent.
The justice was obviously ill at ease. He had ventured upon an innovation in a very important matter, which he felt was unjustifiable unless some valuable result were to accrue. There was something singular in the case, and he had his qualms in committing the boy to jail without a fair opportunity to show his innocence. For this he had already gone far. The fact would not be mended nor marred by going further.
"Did you leave any one in the theatre?" he queried.
"Yes, sir," faltered Ned.
"How many did you leave there?" demanded the magistrate briskly, seeing the possibility of shifting the crime from such narrow shoulders.
"Three men." (General sensation.)
"Give their names," said the magistrate, fingering his pen and feeling his hand upon the heart of the mystery.
"Dunno their names."
"But you could identify them?"
To his great displeasure Ned would not answer. The magistrate persisted. "Did you want to describe them? Was that your intention?"
Still Ned refused to speak.
The justice looked at him, baffled. There were few persons present, and most of them the miniature strikers. But he discerned in the countenances of the officers and a lawyer or two, besides those representing the prosecutors, an alert appreciation of his departure from the methods of his office and the letter of the law.
"Come, come, now,—what were they doing?"
Ned looked down at his convulsively working hands and said nothing,—knowing not what to say and what to leave unsaid.
"What o'clock was it when you left?" The magistrate essayed as he supposed an easy inquiry. He wished not to have it said that with an unprecedented course of questioning he had reduced the prisoner to silence when the law expressly provides what shall be asked of him, and that with his consent, by the examining magistrate. He could not conceive that the interrogation as to the hour when one quitted a theatre could prove an embarrassment. It failed, however, to reopen verbal communication. Ned heard again far away that tolling bell of the night strike the mystic note of one o'clock, the single weighty tone, impressive, awe-inspiring, with the recollection of the darkness and the strangeness of his awakening.
Once more he said nothing.
The justice at last desisted in irritation. He had not acquitted himself to his satisfaction, and he began to be more acutely ill at ease as he noted two or three newspaper reporters in the room, who had been attracted by the rumor of unusual circumstances in the examination which had already gotten wind. One of the reporters suddenly addressed the magistrate, and to Ned's surprise and his deep mortification he recognized a representative of the paper which he also served in his humble capacity.
"May it please your honor," said the reporter courteously, "I know the defendant very well, and can testify to his general good character."
The justice, thoroughly out of temper, replied testily, "To please me you would have to testify to a good deal more than that."
"I thought from your manner that you would be glad to be able to avoid committing so young a lad." The reporter sought to justify himself.
Now this comment upon the course which the justice had seen fit to take, since he himself did not altogether approve it, was the most unfortunate that could have been made in Ned's interest. That it was disapproved by the detective, the officers, and the lawyers of the parties who were grievous sufferers by the crime in which Ned had contrived to become entangled and who naturally, from the magnitude of the losses, were not disposed to leniency, was most obvious from their general facial expression, although no overt indication of dissatisfaction had been adventured.
"Fortunatelyyouare not here tothink!" retorted the justice. His large head, with its fat jowl, was canted slightly backward as he spoke, his hands were lightly clasped across his capacious stomach, and he looked at the reporter from under the half-closed lids of small, narrow, unfriendly eyes.
The reporter was of a type of man calculated to be particularly unacceptable to the burly demagogue of a justice. The blond, handsome youngster was something of a fop. Indeed, he went by the sobriquet of "dude reporter" in the composing-room. He was nevertheless a very efficient newspaper man, he came of good people, he was essentially a gentleman, and he was of a specially kind and amiable disposition. He could no more have refrained from seeking to help Ned at this pinch than if the boy were drowning before his eyes. He had been silent at first, although he stared as if he thought he had the nightmare when the spectacle of the forlorn little printer's devil in custody broke upon his astonished gaze. He had, however, waited to interfere till the moment when the justice's decision seemed imminent, hoping that Ned had some ground of defense, some testimony to offer that would serve to extricate him. Now he could wait no longer, and he braved the wrath of the justice, and, what was much more formidable to him, the gleeful relish of two reporters from other papers, who were even now writing him up before his eyes as fast as their waggish pencils could travel.
"Ned!" he cried indignantly, "why don't you answer his honor? You know that youcan'tbe guilty of all those crimes. Tell him about the affair!"
The justice was for a moment as one petrified. Then he rallied his faculties. "Young man," he said menacingly, "do you know where you are?"
One of the gayly facetious reporters added "at" to the sentence, and thus it stood in the printed columns in the morning.
"I beg your honor's pardon," said the dude reporter humbly, "but noting your honor's kind efforts to make the child divulge the names of the wicked men who may be utilizing his youth and ignorance to conceal their crimes of larceny and arson, I ventured to speak to him. He knows me very well, and I thought I might aid your honor by reason of my long acquaintance with him. He is a very good boy—"
"Must be," interrupted the justice sarcastically,—"not at all obstinate."
—"and greatly valued by his employers. I felt that you would like that any one who could should testify in his behalf."
"If you have anything specific to say on that head you may speak,—that is, if he will permit you,—you see that he has no counsel; otherwise it is not worth while to administer the oath."
The dude reporter reflected doubtfully, all unmindful of the flying pencils of the other reporters "scooping" him on the spot. But when he came to consider his knowledge of Ned he was compelled to perceive that it was in the nature of things negative and trivial, and would do more harm adduced than neglected. Of what avail to detail the puerile little incidents of which such a boy's life was made up? When Ned fell into disgrace because the office cat was reduced to misery and despair by reason of a tin can tied to its tail, it required no great knowledge of character to discover that this was the joyous work of a certain roguish office-boy, and to relieve Ned of suspicion, which only fell upon him because he was the younger of the two. Ned dined with this cat daily, dividing with it the meagre contents of the little tin pail which he brought from home. He went about much of the time with the cat in his arms, although scornfully admonished to "Hush-a-bye your baby!" by this office-boy, who could be mocking as well as roguish. The too dainty staff, as Ned considered them, were often scandalized by the cat's appearance in triumph, bearing a big, live rat through the editorial rooms, and not to be diverted from a tour of the place till the devil could be found, and the notable capture exhibited to its human friend. Ned seemed to delight in little services of utility, offered gratuitously and evidently with no expectation of reward; but this only proved the kindness of heart of this gentle little devil, and as the reporter racked his brains he realized that many of the facts possible to cite in his favor were only of this nature. Ned would see to it that a great array of pencils well sharpened were laid ready for use on each desk before the editorial work commenced daily, although this was none of his duty, more properly falling within the functions of the negligent office-boys. The night editor, the proud possessor of a spherical pincushion fashioned by an ingenious female relative, on frugal holiday gifts intent, was helplessly wont to see it roll its rotundities out of reach whenever needed, followed by reluctant feet and hearty maledictions, till he found it one day secured against the wall by a wire ingeniously wrought basket-wise, effectually restraining its activities thereafter. Another editorial pincushion was of a dark hue, on a dusky desk, in a dim corner, often secluded altogether from discovery till it was rendered easily visible to the naked eye in any weather by a neatly adjusted frill of white tissue paper fashioned by the deft fingers of the devil, and daily renewed. The boy never forgot anything that might serve the comfort of others, slight though were his powers to promote this. The door of the editorial room had creaked from time immemorial till Ned and a drop of oil came. If a budget of papers was forgotten and left at home, if a personal errand was to be swiftly done, and the leaden-footed office-boys recoiled and protested against it as impracticable and contended that they were hired for no such miracles of speed, "Lemme go fur 'em," Ned would beg; "I'll git 'em as soon as the printers let me off!" To be sure Ned had his trifling rewards, his favors being duly reciprocated in the way of small change, but these tokens were obviously unexpected, the simple little boy regarding them rather as free-will gratuities, mere gifts from sheer kindness, than as payment for services. No wonder the dude reporter was willing to exert himself. But how could he urge these trifling indicia of temperament and character, albeit Ned's opportunities were commensurately small? The reporter hesitated, and the sarcastic justice remarked at last, "May I remind your wisdom that the court awaits your pleasure?"
The blond young man—the very wave of his dainty cow-lick on his handsome forehead was an offense to the bluff justice—flushed, but replied with good temper,—
"Your honor knows that in the nature of things but little can be said for a mere child, whose opportunities for wrong-doing are limited as well as—"
"Perhaps not so limited as one might well think!" the magistrate interposed significantly.
"He has no position of trust, of course, but he has been faithful over the few things in his care. I know the boy to be greatly esteemed by his employers,—hard-working, punctual, careful, honest so far as I have ever heard or observed, eager to please, industrious, cheerful, willing, the most kindly disposed little fellow I ever saw in my life."
The justice rapped impatiently on his desk. "Thisis not to the purpose," he said. "Will you give bail for him?"
"In ignorance of the circumstances of the crime?—no, your honor, I will not."
"Will the paper go on his bail-bond?"
"Icannot speak for the management, naturally."
The justice, with the air of a man whose time has been unwarrantably wasted, turned back to the defendant. He inquired of Ned in curt accents if he could find bail, evidently expecting the negative answer which he received. In view of the testimony against him and the prisoner's own statement the justice declared that it was impossible to consider his release. There was anger in the magistrate's eye and impatience in the bang of his blotting-pad as he signed the "mittimus" commanding the officer who had made the arrest to deliver the prisoner to the jailer of the county.
There the printer's devil was to await his trial at the next term of the criminal court; and Peter Bateman, when duly arraigned among the "drunk-and-disorderlies" in the police court, escaped with a reprimand because of his youth and the fact of a first offense, and was discharged and at liberty once more.
When the door of Ned's cell fairly closed upon him he could do nothing but throw himself on the floor in a frenzy of weeping. For a time he could think only of the disgrace,—the shame to himself and to his mother. Presently ideas more practical, more immediate in their effects, usurped this sentiment. He remembered her desolation,—her destitution. His wages would be lost to the little family while he was locked up here,—for how long,—oh, for how long! If they would only let him work,—on his wages had he and his mother lived,—if they only would let him work for his mother, he would care for nothing besides. He broke once more into loud cries and sobs. How could the little household live without him and his weekly wage! They would starve—they would die! He beat as frantically as futilely on the door. He tried the strong bars at the window till every muscle in his arms ached.
When exhaustion brought calmness at last, he sat down and tried to think quietly of what could be done. He entertained now no intention of appealing to his father's old patrons to whom he had contemplated applying for counsel, for guidance, in a difficult emergency. Now, as he was tarnished by an actual criminal charge, he knew they would look askance upon him. He was aware that his mother had never, in her most stringent financial needs, considered seeking for help or charity from them, and hence he judged the tie was not of a kind that might justify money aid. His father's name, for old sake's sake, Ned had fancied might warrant an appeal for advice, but he knew it would be futile as an urgency to them to risk money or to go upon his bond, and naturally so! If those who were acquainted with him personally could not venture thus, how could he expect it from strangers in effect, who had known his father indeed, but in humble guise and long ago, and whose attention could be brought now to Ned himself, only as a most precocious suspect of crime? He did not blame even the dude reporter for declining, but was grateful to him for the good word he had taken the trouble to say.
Ned's mind soon left the details of the future. Try as he might, it would not go forward. It would only travel over and over again the familiar ground of the singular events at the theatre and the detective's story in the magistrate's court to-day. Ned gave, however, no special heed to the episode, as recounted, of mailing the letter; that only proved to him that he was watched then, and now he knew that he had been watched all day. He had no idea that the letter was of any particular importance to the police. The detective had included its mention in his testimony for purposes of his own. He did not disclose the fact that he had ascertained to whom it was addressed. He only wished to discover by the expression of the boy's face whether Ned attached any significance to a possible disclosure of this correspondence; but there was no added shade of fear or anxiety upon it, and the wily detective was for the nonce baffled.
CHAPTER VIII
The letter continued to be an interesting subject of speculation to the detective. His theory that Gorham had burned his own theatre, and that the boy, being a party to the crime or having knowledge of it, was seeking to extort money, had taken a strong hold upon him. He was determined to discover the contents of that letter.
Of course no one as yet except the chief of police knew that suspicions of Mr. Gorham were entertained. As the manager was a man of wealth and, in that sense, of influence and position, it was necessary to observe great caution in proceeding. The merest whisper of such suspicion would offer deadly offense to Gorham if he were innocent, and doubtless would entail consequences yet more serious to any speculator on the subject. If on the contrary he were guilty, it would be wise not to give him the alarm prematurely. Therefore very quietly and furtively did the detective address himself to the duty of investigating Gorham.
In common with most people connected with the theatre, Mr. Gorham was a late riser. These important events of the morning had happened before he was up. They had served to wake him earlier than usual. He had been informed of the suspicions against Ned, and being notified of his subsequent arrest, at once telephoned a lawyer and was thus present by his counsel at the examination.
The detective had become acquainted with some of his habits, and had learned that his letters, which before the fire were sent to his office at the theatre, were now left by his orders at the hotel where he lived. His business of late years had not been altogether satisfactory or successful, and he probably did not yearn for the contents of his letters as appetizers; he was wont to lay them aside unopened until breakfast was concluded.
The obliging waiter who served him at table had to this extent given him away, for and in consideration of a quarter of a dollar to him in hand paid by the detective. The attendant, however, mistook the officer for a creditor or a subscription agent merely, who wished to seize the manager at an auspicious moment when he might be made to pay up or subscribe or do something equally desperate.
The detective, the wily fox, had determined to be with Gorham at the instant when he should open Ned's letter.
"I'll ask to be allowed to read the letter, and I'll see how he takes that," thought the detective.
He contrived to meet Gorham in the corridor of the hotel just when he had finished his breakfast, and at once addressed him on the pretext of reporting the details of the investigation of the burning of the theatre, which the manager had joined the other sufferers by the fire in instituting, and the "shadowing" of the boy whom Pete had accused of entering the building with the avowed purpose of theft.
They walked while talking to the door of the hotel; and standing on the broad stone steps outside, Gorham paused to light his cigar. He listened to the particulars of the capture of the boy and the scenes in the committing magistrate's court without a show of feeling of any sort while he puffed his cigar into a glow. Then he threw the blazing match aside, thrust both hands into his pockets, and stared fixedly at the big, velvety red leaves of a hanging basket in a window hard by. His whole aspect was calculated to intimate to the detective that the recital was wearisome to the last degree and it would be well to have done with it.
How the wily fox watched him!
"He wrote a letter last night,—the boy did," the detective said slowly.
Gorham still stared absently at the great red, velvety leaves. He was satisfied with the amount for which the property was insured; he was busy with his plans for the future; he was already tired of the subject of the fire; he believed it the result of an accident or the carelessness of the night watchman. This official had testified at the trial that morning that an acquaintance, a minor employee of the theatre, a scene-shifter, passing on the street late in the night, had paused on the corner for a casual friendly word; he had been seized with the conviction that he smelled fire, and then opining that it issued from the basement of the theatre, he had accompanied the night watchman thither, and they were turning over the varied assortments in the property-room and hunting among the tangles of ropes and lifts and stage machinery, and examining the furnace-room and pervading the place while the house was actually in flames above their heads. The scene-shifter, too, had given testimony to the same effect. In this connection Gorham was recollecting the difficulty which he had experienced, in common with every householder perhaps, in forcing employees of whatever sort to observe even a minimum of caution in dealing with fire and lights. He thought the police were on a false scent and were magnifying the clue of the chance entrance of the boy—a child's device to steal a sight at a "show"—into a complicity with house-breakers and thieves and incendiaries.
The street was unusually quiet at this moment. Then a great transfer rattled by, its jarring turbulence filling the sunshine that blazed beyond the scalloped shadow of the awning, and calling up a hollow, tremulous echo from a cave which it was said lay under the town. What strange, high-colored dreams of the outside world must these prosaic vibrations take quivering into the darkened existence of the troglodytes—if any such mystic cave-dwellers could be here! What shadowy, picturesque fancies the echo led coyly out in the sunshine! The manager took his cigar from his lips and gazed pensively into the air. He had been thinking of trying the "spectacular" in a certain sort and on a grand scale when he should rebuild. Here was an idea,—some fantastic play, an opera perhaps, light but romantic, which should call for caverns, gnomes, grotesque conceits, subterranean splendors—all wrought with the newest mechanical contrivances and electric effects. He was trying to recall some story, some old romance, some half-forgotten heroic poem which would lend itself to these modern facilities of representation.
He would not have believed then that he was never to rebuild his theatre,—that in less than an hour the thought would be odious to him.
He was paying scant heed to the detective's words. The officer could but see that fact. The boy might burden the postal service with his missives for aught that Gorham cared. "Or else," thought the man of suspicion, "he is very cleverly pretending indifference."
"The letter was addressed to you," said the detective suddenly.
There was an abrupt change of manner.
"To me!" exclaimed Gorham sharply.
He thrust his cigar between his teeth and with a hasty gesture drew from his breast pocket the budget of letters which he had placed there unopened.
He instantly distinguished the aspect of Ned's letter from the others. He stared hard at the eccentric handwriting; then he ripped open the crumpled envelope. It contained half a dollar wrapped within a page evidently torn from an old copy-book, on which, without date or signature, two words were scrawled.
"Conscience Money," he read, amazed.
He looked from the bit of paper to the money. He looked from the money to the bit of paper. Then he handed both to the detective.
The detective silently gazed at the letter. With his head set inquiringly askew he looked more like a fox than ever,—very sly, very wise, so very wise as to appreciate that there are a few things—exceedingly few—which evenhecould not explain.
Forthiscould not be construed as an attempt toextortmoney!
The manager broke the silence with a laugh.
"I understand," he said. "This is the boy who says that he got into the theatre without paying—and it seems that his conscience nabbed him!"
And he laughed again.
His face changed as once more he fixed his eyes on the simple scrawl.
"And afterward he was arrested! Poor little chap!" he ejaculated gravely. And again, "Poor little chap!"
With a sudden look of determination, or rather of impulse, for Gorham rarely acted from deliberate intention, he set his hat firmly on his head, threw the half-smoked cigar into the gutter, and without another word strode off abruptly down the street, leaving the detective staring blankly after him.
With the same swift, resolute step Gorham presently took his way to a great, many-storied building, and paused at the office of a broker whose name was emblazoned on the glass door.
Here he pushed through the outer room, where several clerks, office-boys, and typewriters, a telephone, and a stock indicator seemed to be the presiding genii of the place. It was a very quiet day; there was an interval of stagnation in the market; and without ceremony he approached the inner door.
"Admission free?" he threw over his shoulder to a clerk, with an agreeable smile.
He hardly waited for the formal reply that Mr. Vanbigh was disengaged and would be pleased to see him. Gorham evidently had no doubts as to his welcome, for he opened the door of the inner room without so much as a tap on the panel.
Here he found at a desk a man still young, albeit his hair was whitened here and there and showed only a suggestion of its pristine auburn hue; his eyes were grave and had that steady, concentrated look characteristic of those who deal much with money in the abstract, as it were, as if they appreciated its elusive quality and fugitive tendency and kept a sharp lookout for unexpected vagaries. Nevertheless there was something in his aspect, even in the lines of his firm mouth, with its slightly compressed lips, that betokened geniality, and the tones of his voice were kind.
"Jim, I want you to do me a favor," said the manager without preamble.
He disregarded the chair close at hand and perched himself on the edge of the desk.
"You couldn't do me a greater favor than to ask one," said the broker, whose first thought was of course of the market, of bulls and bears, and he was prepared to do his utmost in the financial arena, for this was a friend whom he valued indeed. His well-controlled face changed as Gorham plunged into Ned's story; this was far from the sort of thing which he had expected, and taken by surprise he could not all at once adjust his mind to the point of view. He listened vaguely, perceiving no way in which this could concern any service that he could render Gorham, until at last the manager concluded with the blunt request,—
"Now Jim, I want you to go down and bail the little fellow."
The broker recoiled aghast. "I?Why, the boy would jump the ranch! I should lose the money!"
The manager explained. "I'll stand in behind you. If the boy runs away and you have to pay the money I'll make it good.Ican't go on the bail-bond, you see, because it wouldn't do for me to appear as one of the prosecutors in the case and surety on the bond as well! Even ifIcould get out of the case now against him, the other prosecutors would hold on to him."
Vanbigh said nothing. He looked at once surprised, distrustful, troubled.
Gorham talked on impulsively. "This is the first genuine case of conscience I have seen for many a year! Believe a boy who couldn't endure to chouse me out of half a dollar burned my theatre! No, sir! I tell you I have lived so long by sham heroics and sham sentiment—and I am so sick of shams, and the world is generally such a big, shameless sham—that I'm mighty apt to know a genuine thing when I see it by the sheer force of contrast.Thatboy won't jump the town! A boy with all that conscience to carrycouldn'trun away! He is innocent. And this is a terrible charge. He is helpless and he ought to be befriended. I want you to give bail for him!"
The broker was not only dubious—he was becoming greatly embarrassed as well.
"Suppose," he suggested in a constrained voice, "it should be discovered somehow that I am not acting for myself in bailing him, but foryou."
Gorham snapped his fingers. "I don't care! I don't intend to leave that little boy to languish in jail for months, for a year perhaps, till his trial comes off. I tell you the idea of doing this little good turn freshens me all over. I feel as if I had been on a big drunk and somehow got a gourd of cold water from a little spring under a hillside, where I used to stop to drink when I was a boy driving the cows from the pasture. Ihavebeen drunk,—on artificiality, and worldliness, and selfishness."
"But," remonstrated the broker. Then he paused.
"But what, man?" exclaimed Gorham impatiently.
The broker went red and was silent. Indeed, how could he find words to suggest seriously to a man of unblemished integrity that by this act of charity, as for mitigating circumstances men from sheer motives of humanity sometimes refuse to prosecute, he might compromise himself. He might be suspected of having connived at the burning of the theatre for the sake of the insurance money and then having secretly furnished bail for the captured accomplice for fear that the boy, if left in prison, would reveal and incriminate his principal.
"Oh, surely, surely,—no one could ever imagine such an absurdity!" thought Vanbigh, deeming this but a bit of over alert and captious caution.
Gorham was beginning to show unmistakable signs of anger, even offense. Yet he was only the more determined.
"Jim," he said in a different tone, "you and all your family have always protested yourselves under great obligations to me."
He paused as if for a reply.
"You know what we feel for you!" Vanbigh replied warmly. He lifted earnest eyes as he spoke.
For Gorham had been a schoolfellow of Vanbigh's elder brother, and although later in life they had drifted apart in point of association, there had always been that affectionate tie of old reminiscence between them. Only some two or three years earlier than the present they had chanced to meet in New Orleans, where they were lingering still at the time of the outbreak of one of the terrible pestilences of yellow fever. Gorham, when his friend succumbed, one of the first cases, nursed him like a brother, would not leave him, although he could then have escaped in the general panic-stricken exodus, never left him, indeed, for an instant, and after his death, being detained by the quarantine, contracted the infection and came very near death himself, alone and among strangers. People said that it was a mere impulse of Gorham's,—but the relatives of his friend felt and expressed great gratitude. He himself had never before mentioned it.
"I know what you allsaid," he remarked significantly. "I never doubted it before." He would have paid "good money" to an actor who could command a tone of so subtle an inflection as to make such a hit as that!
The broker rose and put on his hat.
"I shall not let you doubt it again!" he protested.
"You are a good fellow, Jim!" cried Gorham, with great satisfaction in carrying his point.
"But it must be understood that I cannot undertake to act for you, under the circumstances; if the boy takes flight I lose the money myself," Vanbigh resumed.
He was thinking himself justified in this after all. He could have the boy kept under surveillance without his knowledge, and at the first suspicious intimation of flight his bondsmen could surrender him. Vanbigh felt that he could hardly refuse Gorham aught in reason, and believing the boy innocent of the crime Gorham had evidently set his heart on bail for him. "But where am I to find another bondsman?" the broker exclaimed, realizing that these considerations would scarcely have weight with any other person. "The law, as you know, requires two sureties on the bond."
"Get Frank," suggested Gorham easily; for Frank was the broker's younger brother.
"Frank will kick like a mule!" Vanbigh said reflectively, rather wincing from the prospective fraternal conflict.
"Frank always kicks like a whole team!" commented Gorham. "But you can manage him."
The broker shook his head doubtfully. He appreciated, for indeed he had learned from experience, that a conflict with those of one's own household presents special and difficult belligerent elements. He was expectant of a controversy rather than disappointed by his brother Frank's attitude when, repairing to his residence for lunch, he broached the matter and requested the fraternal coöperation; for Frank promptly refused. Any disinterested spectator would have thought Frank the more formidable figure in any encounter, domestic or otherwise. Frank was an amateur athlete, and as he sat in the comfortable library lighting his cigar after luncheon, the contour of his strong, shapely limbs under his light fawn-tinted spring suit, the pose of his blond head on his broad shoulders, the strength of his grip suggested in the mere manner of using his fingers, in casting away the match, all intimated a muscular reserve power none the less formidably apparent for being relaxed.
"I am beholden to you, Jim," he replied satirically. "Seem to think I am insane!"
The windows of the room looked out upon the wide woodland vistas of the driving-park just across the street. The heavy velvet carpet, the antique tall bookcases of time-darkened mahogany that lined the walls, even the spacious mirror above the marble mantelpiece,—all were obviously relics of the past. The contour of the old-fashioned square brick house, faced with gray stone, bespoke its condition as overtaken by the march of municipal progress, rather than any choice of the fashionable site in the vicinity of the park. In fact it was the habit of the household to bewail the approach of the town, that in its swift strides and wealthy expansion had overhauled their quiet suburban home. But the approach of town had really worked them no harm, either material or sentimental. They were none the worse for the letter-box and lamp-post on the corner, and the splendid residences of the newcomers that made up the solid blocks of the vicinity had served to enormously enhance the value of the property. From the windows of the library and the drawing-rooms one might never know that the driving-park across the street was not still the "old woods" of years ago, save for the broad, smooth, well-kept roads winding deep among the vistas of the forest trees; and the sylvan tangles were no less picturesque now, because highly appreciated and carefully conserved by the taste of the park commissioners, than heretofore, when not considered at all. Even the sound of the town was but a dull murmur as it came in at the open windows; one could not discriminate the bang of the cable car which had set Jim down at the corner. They were to all intents and purposes as far away from city life and city thoughts as if the woodland opposite, that cast so welcome and soft a green shadow through the lace curtains and gave so verdant and vernal a sylvan view, were really a wilderness instead of its graceful simulacrum.
"It's just as well, perhaps, that nobody told Gorham thatheseemed insane when he fairly threw his life away, as he thought, rather than desert poor Phil,—who after all had no sort of claim on him," the broker replied, lighting his cigar also, but with quick, nervous gestures.
Frank was smoking hard. "Did you ask me to bailJasper Gorham?" he demanded sarcastically, between two mighty puffs.
"I didnot, indeed!" responded his brother, and then there was silence, save for a subdued clatter of dishes from the dining-room beyond a cross hall, and the sound of some pleasant feminine voices on a side veranda, upon which it opened.
Frank was more apathetic than his brother, and better held in hand, but nevertheless the tone of this rejoinder struck home.
"You ask me," Frank began to justify himself, holding his cigar to one side and waving the smoke from his head with his other hand,—"you ask me to play stalking-horse for Gorham, topretendto go on the bail-bond of this young criminal while Gorham is really his security."
"Frank," said the elder brother coolly, "I should really be warranted in throwing you out of the window."
"Lay hold!" said the athlete complacently.
Then there was silence for a time, and the two smoked quietly, now and again eying each other calmly, as if there had been no passage of arms between them.
The ladies were coming in from the veranda. Frank had a vague sensation of uneasiness. He was of that type of man who seeks to exclude women from the discussion of business and who doubts the propriety of their holding property in their own right, even more than the policy of extending to them the suffrage. But the broker's coolness in the feminine presence implied the conviction that after all it would be men who would control whatever extension of privilege the future might hold for women. He was contemplating even now an intention of enlisting the interest of these as against the fraternal kicker. It was he, therefore, who renewed the subject immediately upon their entrance.
"You are mistaken, Frank," he said. "I gave Jasper Gorham to understand distinctly that in any event we would act on our own responsibility, and lose any money that may be lost,—if the boy should escape surveillance."
"What is it that Mr. Gorham wants?" demanded their mother, younger of aspect than one would expect from the presence of these stalwart sons. Her hair was abundant, though white, and waved heavily back from a strong, sweet, animated face with fine, well-set blue eyes. She was clad still in a mourning dress in memory of the son who had perished in the pestilence, and her voice trembled on the syllables of the manager's name.
The younger lady paused, too, at the sound, and turned her head inquiringly. She wore a dainty house-gown, but even its tones were black and white. She had dark hair rolledà la Pompadour, and on her soft pink-and-white face was an incongruous expression of determination that glanced brightly, too, in her clear gray eyes. She had taken a baby of six months of age from a white-capped nurse, and was just consigning him to the arms of his uncle, for this was Jim's wife.
"Gorham wants to avoid imprisoning a boy—a mere child—who is somehow concerned in the fire and robbery—suspected of knowing something about the affair," explained the elder Vanbigh.
"Just like him!" cried both women, in a breath.
"Of course he will prosecute the little lad, if the evidence should warrant it, but he thinks it the unlikeliest thing in the world that the boy is guilty at all, and until there is more developed against the child he hates to lock him up for months and months! It would do no good for Gorham to refuse to prosecute him, for the other prosecutors would hold on to him. So the little boy has gone to jail. Gorham is terribly wrought up about it."
"But can't you arrange it somehow, James?" his mother asked. "I should so like for you to be able to do something for Mr. Gorham." She sighed as she spoke.
No adequate requital of their obligations had been possible, of course. They had not been able to further Gorham's plans in any respect. He was a rich man, and reputed even richer than he was. He had no speculative tendency outside of the theatrical business. As for social prestige, he was not of their sort, and their circle not his. In truth, he had not cared often to meet these tearful, exacting women, who regarded him as a hero, and whose ideals so far exceeded his imagination and his ambition.
"Gorham askedmeto go on the bail-bond," continued the broker, "although he said I should lose nothing if the boy absconds; but I wouldn't agree to that, and I asked Frank, for him,—but Frank wouldn't."
"Oh,Frank!" The poignant duet rose like a wail, and the athlete cowered behind his nephew's pink ribbon shoulder-knots and white frock as the child bounced and gurgled and squealed beguilingly at him.
"Do you think you are right to set them on me?" said the strong man weakly.
"Quit carousing with the baby and talk sense!" his brother adjured him.
"Oh,Frank! remember!" cried his mother in tears.
"Oh,Frank, money was nothing then! No friends, no help, every creature but Mr. Gorham fleeing from the plague-stricken!" cried Frank's sister-in-law.
"And how thoughtful for us—forme!—to remember and bring me my son's last words, his last messages!" The tears choked his mother's utterance.
"And then," said the younger woman, weeping in sympathy,—"to recall every incident,—the details of the treatment,—to make us feel that everything was done for poor Phil that we could have had done, had we been with him too! I don't seehowwe could bear to think of Phil, except that Mr. Gorham was with him to the last."
"And listened to his latest sigh and closed his eyes in death!" said his mother.
"And then he almost died too; he risked his life—to make sure that Phil had every chance for his own! Oh,—Frank!"
"Yes, yes,—he followed him to the gates of death and was only turned back by a miracle, it seemed—oh,Frank!"
"But it can't be a question of money with Frank," said his sister-in-law, wiping her eyes. "Frankwould not stand on a question of mere money!"
"He thinks that we may be misconstrued," explained her husband. "And at first I was doubtful. But now it seems very plain. Gorham naturally does not want to keep this child cooped up in jail so long. He'll prosecute him fast enough if the boy seems to have really had anything to do with the crime or any guilty knowledge of it. But Gorham doesn't believe this. He thinks the facts will come out the sooner if the boy is footloose and free. Of course he will be kept under surveillance all the time, and could hardly run away if he wished. We are in no sort of danger of losing the money, as far as that goes, and reallyIcould not refuse Gorham,—he was so intent upon it!"
"Oh,—Frank!" cried his mother.
"Oh,—Frank!" cried his brother's wife.
"Where's my hat?" said the athlete faintly. "Take the baby before I drop him! I'm fairly knocked out! Let me go! Come, Jim!"
On the way down town Frank was again over the traces once or twice, but kicking was in vain, and he was going easily in harness, although fully realizing the awkwardness of the situation, when late in the afternoon they were admitted to the jail. As the door of the cell opened, the jailer with grim humor said to Ned, "I'm sorry to part with you, my boy,—the next time you come you must make us a longer visit!"
Ned turned his flushed, swollen, tear-stained face with a stare of blank amazement. He did not understand what the jailer meant, and he showed no recognition whatever of the newcomers.
The jailer suddenly noted the fact that the two gentlemen were evidently total strangers to Ned. He paused in his banter to look wonderingly from one to the other.
"I've come to bail you, youngster," said the elder of the two, affecting a familiarity which he by no means felt. "Get your hat!"
Ned mechanically obeyed. He was afraid to ask an explanation,—to speak a word,—lest it be discovered in some way that the extraordinary good luck in this deliverance was all a mistake.
The jailer still stared,—more than ever after the great gate had opened and let them out on the street. The two gentlemen walked on in advance, while Ned followed with an officer. The magistrate's office was but a little distance up the street on the opposite side, and there Ned, scarcely believing his eyes, watched the bold flourishes with which his two sureties signed his bail-bond, entering into an undertaking in the penal sum of one thousand dollars each for his appearance at the next term of the Criminal Court.
When these formalities were concluded he and his new friends came out together still in silence. He glanced instinctively over the way at the grim walls of the jail. There at the gate the jailer stood. He peered after them in the closing dusk as they walked silently away,—peered after them till the night seemed to swallow them up. "This beats all!" he ejaculated.
And still wondering he went back into his stronghold.
CHAPTER IX
It seemed to Ned that the best use he could make of his liberty was to pound Pete Bateman.
When, still silent, he parted from his silent bondsmen, he went without delay to his false friend's home. He took the alleyway, as he always did, being pretty sure of finding the boys at this hour in the back yard splitting kindling or bringing in the wash from the clothesline, or engaged in similar small domestic duties. In fact he heard the sound of chopping wood as he opened the gate.
The sound abruptly ceased when he thrust in his head.
It had grown quite dark. He could not guess whether the figure with the shapeless cap bending over the kindling were Pete or Tom, until after an astonished gaze at the intruder it skulked behind a wash-tub set high on a wooden bench.
That was Pete—every time!
Now and again the old cap peeped hastily out from behind the wash-tub and was as hastily withdrawn.
Ned still stood at the gate. He hardly knew what had become of his resolve. He tried to rally it by thinking of the fate in store for him when this interval of liberty should be at an end and the day set for his trial dawn.
Here was the lying witness at his mercy. He could thrash him, and thrash him well,—for fat Pete was no fighter. But somehow he felt that a boy who hid behind his mother's wash-tub ought to be allowed to stay there. Pete did not seem worth a good substantial licking.
As Ned stood undecided one of his mother's injunctions flashed through his memory.
"Ef ye can't git yer consent ter return good fur evil," she often said, "hold yer hands ennyhow from harmin' them ez have hurt ye."
All his troubles, first and last, had come from disregarding that simple, uncultured mother's simple precepts.
Ned shut the gate and walked away.
His account of the day's proceedings seemed a wild, terrible story to the panic-stricken woman who sat cowering in the little room that opened on the vistas of chimney-pots and clouds and stars. He found her in tears. She had just learned of his arrest through a message from the managing editor of the paper, who sent to say that he had arranged to have Ned's wages paid to her during the boy's imprisonment as regularly as if he were still at work. The editor had some charitable hobbies which thus liberally expressed themselves, aided in this instance by his confrères of the various departments of the paper. For although the editorial force deemed Ned the tool of the incendiaries and thieves, and thought that his obstinate silence was strangely incriminating, they still had faith enough in him to believe him the victim of a deception, and innocent of all intentional wrong-doing; that he was somehow the dupe of an over-reaching craft, and the forlorn scapegoat of the real criminals. Even thus, the situation was discreditable to the last degree, and well calculated to alienate whatever friends the little lad had been able to make for himself. But when the "dude reporter," who had hied himself straightway to the office, detailed the strange disasters that had befallen the printer's devil, the editorial force remembered a thousand trifling benefactions received at his small, willing, ink-smirched hands, and a subscription, circulated among the desks, aggregated a sum sufficient to justify a promise of the continuance of the payment of his weekly wages for the indefinite time of his incarceration, till his trial should set the question of his guilt or innocence at rest.
Ned's presence at liberty once more could not reassure his mother. Long after he had gone to announce his release to his employers and resume his work she crouched pale and chill beside the monkey-stove, although the air was warm and languorous. Her mind was filled with terror for the future and with those ever unavailing regrets for the past and the simple country home of her youth.
As Ned reached the newspaper building and looked up at the brilliantly illuminated windows flaring against the dark sky, he had a renewed sense of the blessedness of liberty and the privilege of labor, and once more the singular manner in which bail had come to him recurred to his mind.
His surprise, however, at the sensation which the story of his release produced in the sensation-seasoned composing-room soon effaced every other impression.
"Hold on a minute," said the foreman, interrupting the recital in its midst.
He stepped into the office of the managing editor, and presently that magnate came out, looking alert and inquisitive and catechistic, as a newspaper man will when there is a mystery in the air.
From some subtle instinct Ned knew that the foreman had made representations which the managing editor had pronounced preposterous, and had refused to believe.
"So you were bailed, were you?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," replied Ned.
The editor fitted the tips of his fingers together very accurately while he looked hard at Ned. He spoke slowly and impressively.
"Considering the very serious nature of the crimes with which you are charged and the amount fixed for bail, your sureties must repose a great deal of confidence in you. I hope that you will not abuse it."
"Naw, sir, I ain't got no notion o' runnin' away," declared Ned stoutly.
Both the editor and the foreman were looking at him very gravely.
"Who were your bondsmen?" asked the editor.
"Sir?" said Ned, bewildered by their manner.
"Who gave bail for you?" The editor varied the phrase.
"I dunno, sir," replied the little devil.
The foreman grinned triumphantly.
"Don't know?" echoed the editor amazed.
"Naw, sir," admitted Ned. "I disremember their names. I never seen either o' them till to-day."
Strange as he had thought the occurrence at first, it appeared still more strange now when he saw how others regarded it. They found it difficult, too, to believe that two men whom Ned had never before seen, whose very names he did not know, would each stake a thousand dollars upon his honesty when he was accused of house-breaking, larceny, and arson, and had just been committed to jail after his examining trial. The managing editor, who had known him long, had done all that was liberal, sympathetic, and sensible. That two strangers should be even asked to go upon his bail-bond seemed to Ned a wild impulsive vagary,—as indeed it was.
It did not seem so to the others. Business men do not account for the assumption of financial liabilities on the basis of an impulsive vagary. There was a very stern expression on the editor's face as he turned away. This journal had done much to unmask corruption in high places, and to uphold the standard of public morals and private integrity. That it was not altogether too good for this world and a very human newspaper after all was manifest in its overweening and puffed up pride in its career of righteousness. It had waxed bold and censorious,—it was even esteemed insolent and trenching upon the reckless,—with its successes and its impunity, and it spoke out very openly without fear or favor.
Ned with a sinking heart began to experience a vague but troublous fear that further disasters were impending because of this. A little later he chanced to be passing through the local room. He was obliged to pause in his errand to the city editor, for that personage himself was blocking the aisle as he stood and conferred with a reporter at one of the tables.
The reporter, eager and over-zealous as a cub-reporter is apt to be, had sprung up as if to meet so good an assignment halfway, clutching his precious note-book to his bosom in his frenzy of haste and repeating his orders as if to fix them in his mind. "Yes, sir,—go to the jail to-night, even if I can't get a peep at the bail-bond till to-morrow."
Ned did not understand,—why was he going to the jail?
The boy's face bore so pointed an inquiry that the city editor noticed it as he turned around and almost stumbled over the printer's devil with the message from the foreman of the composing-room. The city editor did not reply to the urgency for "local copee."
"Hey, boy," he said irritably, "always under foot!" Ned fancied that the editor would prefer that he should not have heard the reporter's assignment.
But this was no "scoop," the boy argued sagely. The detail of the examining trial would be in all the other papers in the morning. And a bail-bond could no more be hidden than a city that is set on a hill.
He fancied later that an effort was made in the editorial departments of the paper to allay his suspicions that aught unusual was perceived about the affair. Nothing more was asked of him, nor mentioned in his presence. The editors and the elder members of the reportorial staff maintained without apparent strain this check upon their personal and professional curiosity. But he could detect the "cub-reporters," the devil's natural enemies, looking at him sometimes with an eager greed to discuss the matter with him that could not be disguised. "Like a dog at a bone," thought Ned, in dismay. For he realized that the editors had serious purposes in this scheming silence. They evidently desired that he should not take alarm prematurely, and, reporting from the paper on his own account, instead of for it, convey warnings to others of the storm brewing there.
Their caution, however, did not extend to the composing-room. They regarded the printers as in some sort appurtenances of those precincts and with no functions nor interests beyond,—the mere tongue as it were of the paper, while the editorial force represented the subtler and essential powers of speech. It is needless to say that the compositors took no such inarticulate view of themselves. Ned heard much in these days among the cases which he could not understand and which therefore made him wince. The printers never tired of asking questions about the unexpected bail, even when at work, thus infringing the rule of comparative silence usually preserved. They maintained, however, an affectation of the most careless and casual interest, pausing in the midst of an interrogatory, for instance, to slip the last stick off upon the galley, and not resuming till the type was locked to take the galley proof. They received his replies with sly winks at each other, significant leers, and similar demonstrations, until the boy, bewildered and angry, grew sullen and would not answer at all. He perceived in dismay that his silence added to their excitement and interest, and he began to believe that they too entertained strange suspicions about the affair of the bail-bond. He discovered that they made an effort to sound Peter Bateman and to find out from him if he knew anything of the mysterious reason which actuated Ned's sureties in going on his bail-bond and thus effecting his release from jail, where otherwise he must have languished for many weary months.
Peter Bateman's domestic relations were such as to prevent him from being altogether secure or happy in the time intervening between Ned's committal and trial, even if he had not dreaded the ordeal of testifying again and in the criminal court. The Bateman family were under no illusions concerning him, although they did not dream that he had deliberately borne false witness against his former friend, but they thought his rectitude was of that nature and tenuity to be judiciously fortified, and many were the lectures unceasingly dinned into his unwilling ears on the evils of lying, and the hard fate of the liar both in this world and the next. Knowing as he did that he had already deeply involved himself, these were hard things to hear, and under the menace of the open word and the secret thought Pete fell away till his contour no longer resembled the Bologna sausage as of yore! He lay awake at night and he wept much behind the stove during the day. He almost felt that if he had another chance he would actually tell the truth! Second chances, however, are rare in this world, and the inexorable law, in particular, holds out few opportunities for changing one's mind. His father and mother and grandfather were afraid to trust him out of their sight, not knowing what he might be at. Under the circumstances they could not say that he had done aught that was implicating, but they knew Pete of old and would hardly have been surprised at any development which would involve him and release Ned from the trouble. They berated Ned, notwithstanding, without limit, citing what he must have been to reach at last the fate at hand for him now. And so deceitful! they would exclaim in horror.
"Ned seemed lots more reliable than our Petey! At a pinch I'd ruther have trusted Ned in the cake-shop than Petey," Mrs. Bateman would declare.
"I wouldn't trust Pete there nohow,—without he wore a muzzle!" said Pete's grandfather, who was the proprietor of a little bakery, and Pete was not so fat for nothing!
He had not the heart now to purloin so much as a macaroon. No murderer ever dreaded an encounter with the ghost of the defunct victim more quailingly than Pete feared meeting Ned. He lived too in absolute terror of the junior "typos" and galley-boys, who he fancied had entered into a conspiracy to decoy him out and thrash him by way of partisanship for Ned, for now and again Pete contemplated the unvarnished truth and was for the nonce oblivious of the fact that only his own guilty conscience and Ned were aware that he had sworn falsely and maliciously in the effort to compass the ruin of his friend. So often, however, did some fellow employee of Ned's come to the shop that it might well warrant Pete's conclusion. He had persuaded his grandfather to let him "tend shop" as a subterfuge to keep him indoors and protect him from the chance encounter he feared. He had made the most sacred promises in regard to devouring the stock, for Pete's capacities in this line were formidable, and so far he had kept his pledge, for his appetite had vanished. "I'd ruther ye had teeth like mine," his grandfather had said, showing an eight-dollar set in a grin, "for then ye could hypothecate 'em, and with that security in the safe I'd feel more sure o' ye!" But Pete had begun to repent of his bargain, now that the curiosity of the composing-room had turned in his direction. He could sometimes have screamed with affright when the little bell on the door of the cake-shop tinkled as it opened, announcing an entrance, and, sent from the back room to wait on the customer, he would behold on the other side of the counter the round, rosy face and preternaturally sharp, alert eyes of one of the cub-printers. But for the counter between them Pete could not have stood his ground. The junior employees of the paper developed a taste for tarts that must have wrought stomachic havoc and financial wreck. In these crucial interviews the vacillating gourmand invariably found it difficult to determine exactly what it was that he wanted to eat.
"Cream-puffs,—have you heard anything more about the fire?"
"Naw! an' don't wanter!" replies Pete.
"Notthose,—some with chocolate a-top. Who doyouthink set the theatre afire?"
"Dunno! Chocolate ain't never on cream-puffs, nohow."
"Well—what'sthatthen? Do you think that Ned knows who burnt it?"
"I dunno nuthin' 'bout Ned!Them?just plain chocolate cake."
"Well—you swore to lots about Ned, considering you don't 'know nothing' about him. I wonder he doesn't thrash you!"
"He dassent!" cries Pete tumultuously.
Whereupon the cub holds up his chin and looks critically over the counter at Pete, who sidles back and forth under this menacing gaze, and wonders if the cub can jump over the counter, and if anybody—grandpa, even "mommer"—is within call!
"Why don't you thrash Ned, then! They tell me he called you a liar in open court! And he is a small boy."
Pete begins to nod his head menacingly. "He'll git somethin' worse'n the lie when his trial comes off!"
"Where did he ever know the men who bailed him, anyhow?"
"In the theayter, mebbe,—they all burnt it together!" retorts Pete hardily.
"Look-a-here!you seem to know adeal, my hearty! More than is healthy!" declares the cub, with the affectation of a long, speculative look, which wilts Pete.
"Oh, take your cake an' go along!" exclaims Pete. "I ain't goin' to talk no mo'!"
"Just like Ned! He doesn't talk any nowadays. For the same reason, I reckon. Might tell too much!"
"Oh, take your cake an' go!" screams Pete in desperation.
"Where is it? Oh, on the counter; well,—isthatcoffee cake or currant bun? One thing is certain—there will be a reporter at the trial!" the cub-printer adds with a menacing inflection, as one should say, "The judgment day is a-coming along!"
Under this stress Pete tries to rally, realizing that he is even now metaphorically face to face with the public. "Must I wrap up the coffee cake?" with a smile that would be an appropriate concomitant of a raging toothache.
"About as well as anything," and with a look indicative of the boxer latent in every man and a disposition to trounce Pete, which with difficulty he holds in leash, the cub-printer goes his way to his fellows of the composing-room and reports no progress.
Again and again scenes almost exactly similar to this took place, with only a change as to the identity of Pete's interlocutor, and as often he pleaded with his parents to be released from the duties he had been so anxious to assume in "tendin' shop." But they believed, and not without reason, that the street awaited Pete's idle time and there mischief lurked, and thus with his gnawing conscience and his miserable fears and his sadly jocose martyrdom he counted the days, and repented of the past, and dreaded the future, and kept a lively and anxious lookout for Ned!