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CHAPTER XIII. PROFESSOR PUFFER
Three days later Mr. McCracken said to Bernard at the breakfast table: “Well, I have secured a position for you.”
“Indeed, sir, what is it?” inquired Bernard, with interest. “Is it in the city?”
“No; did you particularly wish to live in the city?”
“No, sir; as long as the position is a good one, and is likely to lead to something, I am not particular.”
“You are a sensible boy. Let me say, then, that my friend Professor Puffer – Ezra Puffer – perhaps you have heard of him – requires a boy of fair education as secretary and literary assistant. Though he has never seen you, he will take you on my recommendation.”
“But, sir,” said Bernard, considerably amazed, “am I qualified to be literary assistant to a professor?”
“As to that, I don’t think anything will be required beyond the ability of a fair scholar. You have a fair education, I take it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You know a little Latin and French, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And write a good hand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then I have no doubt you will suit my friend Puffer.”
“Of what is he professor?”
“I can’t tell you exactly, but I believe he is interested in antiquities. By the way, he is going to Europe. I suppose you won’t object to going with him.”
“No; I shall like it,” said Bernard, in a tone of satisfaction.
“I thought you would. How soon can you be ready?”
“Whenever you wish.”
“Professor Puffer will sail to-morrow in a packet ship, and I have promised to take you on board. He is so busy making preparations that he cannot call here.”
“I should like to make his acquaintance before I start.”
“Why?” asked Mr. McCracken sharply. “Can’t you accept him on my recommendation?”
“I hope he isn’t like Mr. Snowdon.”
“You will find him to be a gentleman. Is that satisfactory?”
“Oh, yes, sir. Don’t imagine I want to make trouble. Only I had a little curiosity in regard to him; that is all. Have you any idea how I shall be employed?”
“Well, to tell the truth, I can’t give you much idea. Your labors will be light, and you will have a chance to see the world. Upon my word, young man, you are very fortunate. If at your age I had such an opportunity I should have been delighted. If, however, you would prefer to go back to the care of Mr. Snowdon, I won’t object to gratifying you.”
“Oh, no; I am quite satisfied,” said Bernard hastily. “I shall certainly prefer Professor Puffer. What is his appearance?”
“I should say that he was about my age. He has but one eye, the other having been destroyed by an accident when he was a young man. I think the other eye is weak, and it is probably for this reason that he requires a secretary.”
“Very likely, sir.”
“You can pack your valise to-day, and to-morrow morning I will take you to the vessel.”
Mr. Stackpole had left the city, and Bernard did not have an opportunity of seeing his father’s old friend Alvin Franklin, so that he was unable to inform either of his departure for Europe. He was sorry for this, as he looked upon both as friends, and would have liked to have had their good wishes.
Somehow he never looked upon his guardian as a friend. The information he had received from Mr. Franklin, moreover, had excited in his mind a suspicion as to Mr. McCracken’s honesty.
However, he was to have an opportunity of supporting himself. Mr. McCracken had told him that Professor Puffer would pay him twenty-five dollars a month, besides his board and traveling expenses, and this he rightly considered as an unusual salary for a boy of his age.
About nine o’clock the next morning he started with Mr. McCracken for the ship Vesta. It lay at a North River pier, and half an hour or less brought them to it. It was a ship of fair size, but as Bernard knew very little about ships of any kind – he had never been on one – he was not in a condition to judge on this point.
They boarded the ship, and Mr. McCracken addressed the second mate, whom he knew slightly.
“Is Professor Puffer on board?” he asked.
“Yes, sir; he is in the cabin.”
“Thank you.”
They proceeded to the cabin, where they found the professor. He was a short, rather stout man, with a red face, scanty hair, and a green shade covering the lost eye.
Mr. McCracken went up and shook his hand.
“Professor Puffer,” he said, “I have brought Bernard Brooks, your new secretary. I hope he will prove satisfactory.”
Professor Puffer turned his glance towards Bernard, whom he examined attentively. Then he said, in a deep bass voice: “I have taken him on your recommendation, Mr. McCracken. You know what I want. If you say he will suit me I have no doubt he will. Young man, I hope we shall get on well together.”
“I hope so, sir.”
“Has your guardian acquainted you with the details of your engagement?”
“He hasn’t told me exactly what I will have to do.”
“You will learn in good time,” said the professor, with a wave of his hand.
“Whatever the duties are I will try to give you satisfaction.”
“All right!”
“You can look about the vessel, Bernard,” said Mr. McCracken, “while the professor and I have a little conversation.”
“All right, sir. I shall be glad to do so.”
So Bernard walked about the ship and watched with interest the preparations for departure. It was all new to him, and he could not help feeling elated when he reflected that he was about to see something of foreign countries, while at the same time earning his living.
He was obliged to confess that Professor Puffer did not come up to his expectations. In fact, he looked like anything but a literary man or professor. Bernard had imagined a tall, slender man, with a high intellectual brow, a pale face, an air of refinement and cultivation, and a quiet manner. Professor Puffer was quite the reverse. He looked more like a sailor, and his red face seemed to indicate that he was not a member of a total abstinence society.
“I never in the world should think that he was a professor,” reflected Bernard. “However, appearances are not always to be trusted, and he may be very intellectual, though he certainly does not look so. I do hope we shall get along well together.”
He was interrupted in his reflections by the appearance of Mr. McCracken on deck.
“I shall have to say good-by, Bernard,” said his guardian, “as the vessel is about ready to start. I hope you will be a good boy and give satisfaction to Professor Puffer. If you do not, you cannot expect me to do anything more for you.”
“No, sir, I won’t. I thank you for procuring me the situation. I will try to justify your recommendation.”
“All right! Well, good-by.”
It might have been supposed that Mr. McCracken would have shaken hands with Bernard now that he was about to go away to a distant point and for an indefinite time, but he did not offer to do it, and Bernard on the whole was glad to have it so. He felt a physical repulsion for Mr. McCracken which he could not explain, and preferred to dispense with all signs of friendliness.
He felt rather relieved, too, when Mr. McCracken had left the vessel, and he had seen the last of him, for a time at least.
The preparations for departure continued. The sailors were busy, and soon the vessel left her wharf, and was towed out into the stream. Bernard watched the shipping in the harbor, the ferry-boats darting here and there, the Jersey shore, and later the spires and warehouses of the great city on the other side of the river. He rather wondered why he did not see Professor Puffer, but that gentleman had gone below. At length Bernard thought it time to inquire the whereabouts of his employer. The steward led him below, and pointed to the door of a stateroom. He knocked at the door, and did not at first have a reply. A second knock elicited an indistinct sound which he interpreted as “Come in!”
He opened the door and saw the professor lying in the lower berth in what appeared to be a stupor.
“Don’t you feel well, Professor Puffer?” asked Bernard.
“Who are you?” returned the professor, with a tipsy hiccough.
This, with the undeniable smell of liquor, and a whisky bottle on the floor, showed clearly enough what was the matter with the professor.
Bernard was shocked. He had always had a horror of intemperance, and he regarded his corpulent employer with ill-concealed disgust.
“I am Bernard Brooks, your new secretary,” he answered.
“Thatsh all right! Take a drink,” returned the professor, trying to indicate the bottle.
“No, thank you. I am not thirsty,” said Bernard.
“Give it to me, then.”
Much against his will Bernard handed the bottle to his learned employer, who poured down the small amount that was left in it.
“Thatsh good!” he ejaculated.
“Have I got to occupy the room with a man like that?” thought Bernard, with disgust. “I hope there are very few professors like Professor Puffer.”
CHAPTER XIV. SOME OF THE PASSENGERS
Bernard had always cherished high respect for literary men and professors, though it must be confessed that he did not venerate Professor Snowdon. To find Professor Puffer an inebriate was certainly a shock to him. Still, he remembered that Burns had been intemperate, and that Byron loved gin, and that in spite of his taste for whisky Professor Puffer might be a learned man.
The next day the professor was sober, partly, perhaps, because his supply of drink had given out. Bernard resolved to get better acquainted with him.
“Professor Puffer,” he said, after breakfast, “I am ready to begin work whenever you please.”
“All right! Have you been seasick?”
“No, sir.”
“I thought perhaps for the first three or four days you might be affected.”
“I thought so, too, as I am not used to the sea, but I haven’t had any trouble yet, so that I can go to work any time you desire.”
“I shan’t undertake to do any work on the ship, Mr. – what is your name?”
“Brooks – Bernard Brooks.”
“Just so. I shall remember after a while.”
“I am very much obliged to you for giving me a situation when you don’t know any more of me.”
“Oh, Mr. McCracken spoke for you. A sharp man is Mr. McCracken.”
“I dare say he is, but I don’t know much about him.”
“Don’t you?” asked the professor, showing some interest. “Isn’t he your guardian?”
“Yes, sir, but I have never spent much time with him.”
“Has he charge of much property of yours?”
“He says I have no property.”
“Ha, indeed! As a rule, guardians are not appointed unless there is property.”
“He was a friend – that is, an acquaintance of my father.”
“How long has your father been dead?”
“Ever since I was five years old.”
Now it occurred to Bernard to ask some questions. “Mr. McCracken told me you were interested in antiquities.”
“Yes – antiquities.”
“Have you written any works on the subject?”
“Yes, several,” answered the professor, with some hesitation.
“Have you any of them with you?”
“No.”
“I thought I should like to look them over if you had, and it might help qualify me for my duties.”
“I have no doubt you will answer my purpose,” said the professor, yawning, as if he did not feel much interest in the subject.
Bernard was rather disappointed. He wished the professor would talk to him on his specialty, as it would be interesting and instructive.
“Are we going to stay abroad long?” he asked.
“My plans are not fully formed,” said the professor. He gave the impression of not caring to talk on the subject, and Bernard took the hint, and ceased to question him. He found time hanging heavily on his hands, as he appeared to have no duties and thought it might be interesting to make some acquaintances on board the ship.
There were ten passengers besides Professor Puffer and himself. The first he became acquainted with was a thin, sallow-faced man who wore green glasses. What he was Bernard could not conjecture, but soon learned.
He was standing forward looking out at the white capped waves when a voice accosted him. “Young man, are you bilious?”
Opening his eyes in surprise, Bernard recognized the sallow-faced passenger.
“I don’t think I am,” he answered.
“I am Dr. Felix Hampton,” said his new acquaintance. “I have discovered a medicine which will effectually cure biliousness.”
“Indeed, sir! You will be a public benefactor, in that case.”
“True, young man. I feel that my work is a great one. Thousands will bless my name. I am going abroad to introduce my medicine in Europe. There must be thousands of bilious cases in London alone.”
“I presume you are right. Shall you establish yourself in London?”
“I cannot give myself to any one country. I shall endeavor to sell an interest in my medicine to some responsible party who will push it in Great Britain. Who is the red-faced man you are traveling with?”
“Professor Ezra Puffer.”
“What is he professor of?”
“I don’t know, sir. I believe he is interested in antiquities.”
“Is he bilious?”
“I haven’t known him long enough to tell.”
“Would you mind recommending my medicine to him?”
“I think you had better do so yourself. I don’t know anything about the medicine, you know.”
“Is he your father?”
“No, sir.”
The idea of being the son of Professor Puffer was quite repugnant to Bernard, and he answered promptly.
“You may be bilious without knowing it. If you will, come to my stateroom I will give you a teaspoonful of the medicine without charge.”
“Thank you, sir. I don’t care for it. If I were sick I would make up my mind to buy medicine, but I feel perfectly healthy. Do you use it yourself?”
“I did, but now I am entirely cured of the insidious disease.”
It struck Bernard that Dr. Hampton was singularly unhealthy in appearance, but this he kept to himself.
As he walked to another part of the deck he was accosted by a bright, healthy looking man of perhaps thirty-five, with a rosy face and a quick, alert manner.
“I see you have been talking with Dr. Hampton,” he said.
“I didn’t know that was his name.”
“Did he ask you if you were bilious?”
“Yes, and offered me a dose of his medicine without charge.”
The other laughed. “He made me the same liberal offer. Neither you nor I look like bilious cases.”
“I should think not,”
“The doctor himself looks like a victim of liver complaint. Are you traveling alone?”
“No, sir. I am traveling with Professor Puffer.”
“A short man with a red face?”
“Yes.”
“A friend of your family?”
“I never saw him until I met him on the ship.”
“You called him Professor Puffer. What is he professor of?”
“I believe he is interested in antiquities.”
“He seems to me more interested in liquor. But I must apologize. I should not speak so of your friend.”
Bernard laughed.
“I am not sensitive on the subject of my friend, or rather my employer,” he said.
“Your employer?”
“Yes; I am his secretary, and I believe I am to assist him in his literary labors.”
“Then I suppose you will become a professor of antiquities also.”
“Perhaps so,” assented Bernard, with a smile.
“For my part, I don’t care much for antiquities. I am more interested in the present than in the past. I am buyer for a Boston house, and my name is Nelson Sturgis. How may I call you?”
“Bernard Brooks.”
“Professor Brooks?” asked Sturgis.
“Not yet,” laughed Bernard.
“Suppose we take a little promenade. I make a practice of walking two hours daily on shipboard in order to get my customary exercise.”
“I shall be glad to join you, Mr. Sturgis.”
As they were walking they had an opportunity to witness an amusing meeting between Professor Puffer and Dr. Hampton.
As Professor Puffer emerged from the cabin the sallow-faced man approached him with the stereotyped question, “Pardon me, sir, but are you bilious?”
“What the – dickens do you mean?” demanded Professor Puffer, glaring at the doctor.
“No offense, sir, but I think most persons are bilious.”
“You look a good deal more bilious than I.”
“No, sir, you are mistaken. I have cured myself of liver complaint by Dr. Hampton’s celebrated liver tonic. I am Dr. Hampton.”
“Are you? Well, your appearance doesn’t speak very well for your remedy. My liver is perfectly regular.”
“I am glad to hear it, sir. I was speaking to your secretary a short time since, but he doesn’t think he is bilious. A boy of his age wouldn’t be apt to know. I will make you the same offer that I did him. I will give you a dose of the tonic free gratis, and you may find that it will benefit you.”
“Is there any whisky or brandy in the tonic?” asked Professor Puffer, with sudden interest.
“No, sir, not a drop. You may rest assured that it is a strict temperance medicine.”
“Then I don’t want any of it, sir. Temperance is a humbug. Are you a temperance man?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I am not. Good morning.”
Dr. Hampton’s next interview was more satisfactory. Among the passengers was a thin maiden lady of uncertain age. She was beginning to suffer seasickness when Dr. Hampton approached her.
“Pardon me,” he said, “but you look bilious.”
“I fear I am,” she answered, in a hollow tone. “I feel dreadfully.”
“I thought I could not be mistaken. Shall I relieve you?”
“Oh, sir, if you only could.”
“I can. A bottle of my celebrated liver tonic will make a new man – I mean woman – of you.”
“Bring me some, please, for indeed I feel very sick.”
Dr. Hampton produced a small bottle from his pocket. “This is it,” he said. “A dollar, please.”
The maiden lady drew a dollar bill from her pocket, and the doctor, producing a spoon, administered a dose. The result was magical! The lady rushed hastily to the side of the vessel, and was relieved of her breakfast.
“I feel better,” she gasped.
“I knew you would,” said the doctor, and he put the bill into his pocket with a smile of satisfaction.
CHAPTER XV. JACK STAPLES
Professor Puffer had a grievance. He had sent on board a good supply of whisky – sufficient to last him through the voyage – but the greater part of this had mysteriously disappeared. Whether it had been carried to the wrong vessel or not could not be ascertained. At any rate, he had to do without it, and this to a man of the professor’s tastes was a great deprivation.
He was quite ready to buy some, and applied to the captain, but Captain Smith had no more than he desired for his own use. He occasionally invited the professor to take a glass, in his own cabin, but this by no means satisfied Mr. Puffer. The enforced abstinence made him irritable, and he vented this irritation on Bernard, with the result of making the boy shun his company.
“Where do you keep yourself all the time?” asked Professor Puffer, one afternoon. “I haven’t seen you for hours.”
“Have you any work for me to do?” asked Bernard hopefully.
“No. I shall do no work on board ship.”
“Would you like to have me read to you?”
“You may read the morning paper if you can find one,” sneered the professor.
But it appeared that Professor Puffer had nothing for him to do, and had only complained of his absence because he was irritable, and wanted something to find fault with.
Bernard made the acquaintance of one of the sailors, Jack Staples, who was a stout, good-humored man of thirty. He possessed a shrewd intelligence that interested Bernard, and he often chatted with him about his Vermont home.
“How came you to go to sea?” asked Bernard one day.
“Well, you see, my father died and my mother married again. You never had a stepfather, I take it.”
“No; my mother died when I was a baby, and my father when I was five years old.”
“That was bad luck.”
“Yes,” answered Bernard gravely.
“I think,” said Jack, shifting his quid of tobacco from one cheek to the other, “that I was about fifteen when my mother told me that she had decided to marry Mr. Stubbs. Stubbs kept a grocery store in the village, and passed for a man well to do. My mother had about two thousand dollars, left by my father, and she did some dressmaking, while I did chores for the neighbors, and sometimes worked on a farm, so that between us we made a comfortable living, and always had enough to eat. When mother told me that, I felt very much upset, for I didn’t like Mr. Stubbs, who was a mean, grasping man, and I tried to get her off the notion of marrying him. But it was of no use. She said she had given her word.
“‘Besides,’ she added, ‘we haven’t got much money, Jack, and Mr. Stubbs says he will support, us both in comfort.’
“‘Are you going to give him your money, mother?’ I asked.
“‘Well, yes, Jack. Mr. Stubbs says he can use it in his business, and he will allow me interest on it at the rate of six per cent. You know I only get five per cent in the savings bank.’
“‘It is safe in the savings bank,’ I said.
“‘And so it will be with Mr. Stubbs. He is a good, honorable man.’
“‘I don’t know about that. All the boys in town dislike him.’
“‘He says they tease him, and steal apples and other things from the store,’ she replied.
“‘I don’t like the idea of having such a man as that for my father.’
“‘He is going to put you into his store, and teach you business, and make a man of you,’ she said.
“I made a wry face, for I knew of one or two boys who had worked for Stubbs, and complained that he had treated them like niggers. However, I soon found that it was no use talking to mother, for she had made up her mind and I couldn’t alter it. In a month she changed her name to Stubbs, and we went to live at the house of my stepfather.
“I soon found that he lived very meanly. We didn’t live half so well as mother and I had before she married, although our means were small. I went into the store, and I never worked so hard in my life. I went to bed tired, and I got up at five o’clock in the morning, feeling more tired than when I went to bed. Presently I needed some new clothes, so I went to mother, and asked for some. She applied to Stubbs, but he refused to get them for me..
“‘The boy is proud,’ he said. ‘He wants to look like a dude. I won’t encourage him in such foolishness.’
“‘He really needs some new clothes,’ pleaded mother.
“‘Then he can buy them himself,’ he returned.
“‘I will buy some out of my interest money,’ said mother.
“‘Your interest isn’t due,’ he said shortly.
“‘You might advance me a little,’ she returned ‘Say, ten dollars.’
“But he wouldn’t do it, and while I am on the subject I may as well say that he never did pay her the interest he promised. Of course he had to give her a few dollars now and then, but I don’t think it amounted to more than thirty or forty dollars a year, while she was entitled to a hundred and twenty.”
“He must have been a mean man,” said Bernard, in a tone of sympathy.
“Mean was no name for it. I tried to get him to pay me wages, no matter how small, so that I could have something to spend for myself, but it was of no use. He wouldn’t agree to it. Finally I told mother I couldn’t stand it any longer; I must run away and earn my own living. She felt bad about having me go, but she saw how I was treated, and she cried a little, but didn’t say much. So I ran away, and when I reached Boston I tried to get a place. This I couldn’t do, as I had no friends and no one to recommend me; and finally, not knowing what else to do, I shipped as a sailor.”
“Have you ever been home since?”
“Yes, I went two or three times, and I always carried some money to mother, who needed it enough, poor woman! Finally I went home two years since and I found that my mother was dead;” and Jack wiped away a tear from his eye. “I don’t think I shall ever go there again.”
“And did Mr. Stubbs keep your mother’s money?” asked Bernard.
“You may be sure he did. But it didn’t do him much good.”
“How is that?”
“His store burned down. Some say it was set on fire by an enemy, and he had plenty. It wasn’t insured, for the insurance company had increased its rates, and Mr. Stubbs was too mean to pay them. Then in trying to put out the fire – it was a cold winter night – he caught a bad cold which brought on consumption, and finally made him helpless. Would you like to know where he is now?”
“Yes.”
“He is in the poorhouse, for all his means had melted away. The man in charge is about as amiable as Stubbs himself, and I have no doubt he has a pretty hard time of it. I don’t pity him, for my part, for he made my mother unhappy, and drove me to sea.”
“I am sorry for you, Jack. Your luck has been worse than mine. My father and mother are both dead, but as long as they lived they fared well.”
“No one ever tried to rob them of money, as my mother was robbed of her small fortune?”
“I don’t feel sure of that,” said Bernard thoughtfully.
“What do you mean?”
Then Bernard told Jack what he had heard from Alvin Franklin about his father’s having had money, and of his suspicion that Mr. McCracken had appropriated it.
The story made an impression on Jack Staples.
“I shouldn’t wonder if you were right, Bernard,” he said. “He seems to have treated you in a queer way. What sort of a man is this Professor Puffer?”
“I don’t know much about him.”
“Do you like him?”
“No.”
“I’ll tell you what – he looks to me like my stepfather.”
“I am puzzled about him,” said Bernard. “He doesn’t look in the least like a literary man, or a professor.”
“That’s so.”
“Then I find he is intemperate. I haven’t been able to learn anything about his business, or studies, but he is fond of whisky. Do you know, Jack, I don’t believe I shall be content to stay with him very long.”
“Is he a friend of your guardian?”
“I suppose so.”
“Are you to get any pay?”
“Twenty-five dollars a month and my expenses.”
“That is good – if you get it.”
“Don’t you think I will?”
“I don’t think you’ll get it any more than my mother got her interest.”
“Then I certainly shall not stay with him.”
“But what can you do? You will be in Europe.”
“I don’t know, Jack, but I think I shall get along somehow.”
“To my mind your guardian had some object in putting you with such a man.”
“Perhaps so, but I may be doing Mr. McCracken an injustice.”
“If ever you get into trouble, Bernard, don’t forget that Jack Staples is your friend. I have got a few dollars stowed away in a bank at home, and they are yours if you need them.”
“I will remember it, Jack, and thank you, whether I need them or not.”
A day or two later something happened that made Bernard still more suspicious of his guardian and Professor Puffer.
