CHAPTER VIII SQUIRE DAVENPORT'S FINANCIAL OPERATION
Squire Davenport was a thoroughly respectable man in the estimation of the community. That such a man was capable of defrauding a poor widow, counting on her ignorance, would have plunged all his friends and acquaintances into the profoundest amazement.
Yet this was precisely what the squire had done.
Mr. Barclay, who had prospered beyond his wife's knowledge, found himself seven years before in possession of a thousand dollars in hard cash. Knowing that the squire had a better knowledge of suitable investments than he, he went to him one day and asked advice. Now, the squire was fond of money. When he saw the ample roll of bank notes which his neighbor took from his wallet, he felt a desire to possess them. They would not be his, to be sure, but merely to have them under his control seemed pleasant. So he said:
"Friend Barclay, I should need time to consider that question. Are you in a hurry?"
"I should like to get the money out of my possession. I might lose it or have it stolen. Besides, I don't want my wife to discover that I have it."
"It might make her extravagant, perhaps," suggested the squire.
"No, I am not afraid of that; but I want some day to surprise her by letting her see that I am a richer man than she thinks."
"Very judicious! Then no one knows that you have the money?"
"No one; I keep my business to myself."
"You are a wise man. I'll tell you what I will do, friend Barclay. While I am not prepared to recommend any particular investment, I will take the money and give you my note for it, agreeing to pay six per cent. interest. Of course I shall invest it in some way, and I may gain or I may lose, but even if I do lose you will be safe, for you will have my note, and will receive interest semi-annually."
The proposal struck Mr. Barclay quite favorably.
"I suppose I can have the money when I want it again?" he inquired.
"Oh, certainly! I may require a month's notice to realize on securities; but if I have the money in bank I won't even ask that."
"Then take the money, squire, and give me the note."
So, in less than five minutes, the money found its way into Squire Davenport's strong box, and Mr. Barclay left the squire's presence well satisfied with his note of hand in place of his roll of greenbacks.
Nearly two years passed. Interest was paid punctually three times, and another payment was all but due when the unfortunate creditor died in Chicago. Then it was that a terrible temptation assailed Squire Davenport. No one knew of the trust his neighbor had reposed in him—not even his wife. Of course, if the note was found in his pocket, all would be known. But perhaps it would not be known. In that case, the thousand dollars and thirty dollars interest might be retained without anyone being the wiser.
It is only fair to say that Squire Davenport's face flushed with shame as the unworthy thought came to him, but still he did not banish it. He thought the matter over, and the more he thought the more unwilling he was to give up this sum, which all at once had become dearer to him than all the rest of his possessions.
"I'll wait to see whether the note is found," he said to himself. "Of course, if it is, I will pay it—" That is, he would pay it if he were obliged to do it.
Poor Barclay was buried in Chicago—it would have been too expensive to bring on the body—and pretty soon it transpired that he had left no property, except the modest cottage in which his widow and son continued to live.
Poor Mrs. Barclay! Everybody pitied her, and lamented her straitened circumstances. Squire Davenport kept silence, and thought, with guilty joy, "They haven't found the note; I can keep the money, and no one will be the wiser!"
How a rich man could have been guilty of such consummate meaness I will not undertake to explain, but "the love of money is the root of evil," and Squire Davenport had love of money in no common measure.
Five years passed. Mrs. Barclay was obliged to mortgage her house to obtain the means of living, and the very man who supplied her with the money was the very man whom her husband had blindly trusted. She little dreamed that it was her own money he was doling out to her.
In fact, Squire Davenport himself had almost forgotten it. He had come to consider the thousand dollars and interest fully and absolutely his own, and had no apprehension that his mean fraud would ever be discovered. Like a thunderbolt, then, came to him the declaration of his unsavory visitor that the note was in existence, and was in the hands of a man who meant to use it. Smitten with sudden panic, he stared in the face of the tramp. But he was not going to give up without a struggle.
"You are evidently trying to impose upon me," he said, mentally bracing up. "You wish to extort money from me."
"So I do," said the tramp quietly.
"Ha! you admit it?" exclaimed the squire.
"Certainly; I wouldn't have taken the trouble to come here at great expense and inconvenience if I hadn't been expecting to make some money."
"Then you have come to the wrong person; I repeat it, you've come to the wrong person!" said the squire, straightening his back and eying his companion sternly.
"I begin to think I have," assented the visitor.
"Ha! he weakens!" thought Squire Davenport. "My good man, I recommend you to turn over a new leaf, and seek to earn an honest living, instead of trying to levy blackmail on men of means."
"An honest living!" repeated the tramp, with a laugh. "This advice comes well from you."
Once more the squire felt uncomfortable and apprehensive.
"I don't understand you," he said irritably. "However, as you yourself admit, you have come to the wrong person."
"Just so," said the visitor, rising. "I now go to the right person."
"What do you mean?" asked Squire Davenport, in alarm.
"I mean that I ought to have gone to Mrs. Barclay."
"Sit down, sit down!" said the squire nervously. "You mustn't do that."
"Why not?" demanded the tramp, looking him calmly in the face.
"Because it would disturb her mind, and excite erroneous thoughts and expectations."
"She would probably be willing to give me a good sum for bringing it to her, say, the overdue interest. That alone, in five years and a half, would amount to over three hundred dollars, even without compounding."
Squire Davenport groaned in spirit. It was indeed true! He must pay away over thirteen hundred dollars, and his loss in reputation would be even greater than his loss of money.
"Can't we compromise this thing?" he stammered. "I don't admit the genuineness of the note, but if such a claim were made, it would seriously annoy me. I am willing to give you, say, fifty dollars, if you will deliver up the pretended note."
"It won't do, squire. Fifty dollars won't do! I won't take a cent less than two hundred, and that is only about half the interest you would have to pay."
"You speak as if the note were genuine," said the squire uncomfortably.
"You know whether it is or not," said the tramp significantly. "At any rate, we won't talk about that. You know my terms."
In the end Squire Davenport paid over two hundred dollars, and received back the note, which after a hasty examination, he threw into the fire.
"Now," he said roughly, "get out of my house, you—forger."
"Good-evening, squire," said the tramp, laughing and nodding to the discomfited squire. "We may meet again, some time."
"If you come here again, I will set the dog on you."
"So much the worse for the dog! Well, good-night! I have enjoyed my interview—hope you have."
"Impudent scoundrel!" said the squire to himself. "I hope he will swing some day!"
But, as he thought over what had happened, he found comfort in the thought that the secret was at last safe. The note was burned, and could never reappear in judgment against him. Certainly, he got off cheap.
"Well," thought the tramp as he strode away from the squire's mansion, "this has been a profitable evening. I have two hundred dollars in my pocket, and—I still have a hold on the rascal. If he had only examined the note before burning it, he might have made a discovery!"
CHAPTER IX A PROSPECT OF TROUBLE
When Ben returned home from the Town Hall he discovered, at the first glance, that his mother was in trouble.
"Are you disturbed because I came home so late?" asked Ben. "I would have been here sooner, but I went home with Rose Gardiner. I ought to have remembered that you might feel lonely."
Mrs. Barclay smiled faintly.
"I had no occasion to feel lonely," she said. "I had three callers.
The last did not go away till after nine o'clock."
"I am glad you were not alone, mother," said Ben, thinking some of his mother's neighbors might have called.
"I should rather have been alone, Ben. They brought bad news—that is, one of them did."
"Who was it, mother? Who called on you?"
"The first one was the same man who took your money in the woods."
"What, the tramp!" exclaimed Ben hastily. "Did he frighten you?"
"A little, at first, but he did me no harm. He asked for some supper, and I gave it to him."
"What bad news did he bring?"
"None. It was not he. On the other hand, what he hinted would be good news if it were true. He said that your father left property, and that he was the only man that possessed the secret."
"Do you think this can be so?" said Ben, looking at his mother in surprise.
"I don't know what to think. He said he was a barkeeper in the hotel where your poor father died, and was about to say more when a knock was heard at the door, and he hurried away, as if in fear of encountering somebody."
"And he did not come back?"
"No."
"That is strange," said Ben thoughtfully. "Do you know, mother, I met him on my way home, or rather, he came up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder."
"What did be say?" asked Mrs. Barclay eagerly.
"He gave me back the bogus dollar he took from me saying, with a laugh, that it would be of no use to him. Then he said he might do me a service sometime, and I would some day hear from him."
"Ben, I think that man took the papers from the pocket of your dying father, and has them now in his possession. He promised to sell me a secret for money, but I told him I had none to give."
"I wish we could see him again, but he said he should leave town to-night. But, mother, what was the bad news you spoke of?"
"Ben, I am afraid we are going to lose our home," said the widow, the look of trouble returning to her face.
"What do you mean, mother?"
"You know that Squire Davenport has a mortgage on the place for seven hundred dollars; he was here to-night with a man named Kirk, some connection of his wife. It seems Kirk is coming to Pentonville to live, and wants this house."
"He will have to want it, mother," said Ben stoutly.
"Not if the squire backs him as he does; he threatens to foreclose the mortgage if I don't sell."
Ben comprehended the situation now, and appreciated its gravity.
"What does he offer, Mother?"
"A thousand dollars only—perhaps a little more."
"Why that would be downright robbery."
"Not in the eye of the law. Ben, we are in the power of Squire Davenport, and he is a hard man."
"I would like to give him a piece of my mind, mother. He might be in better business than robbing you of your house."
"Do nothing hastily, Ben. There is only one thing that we can do to save the house, and that is, to induce someone to advance the money necessary to take up the mortgage."
"Can you think of anybody who would do it?"
Mrs. Barclay shook her head.
"There is no one in Pentonville who would be willing, and has the money," she said. "I have a rich cousin in New York, but I have not met him since I was married; he thought a great deal of me once, but I suppose he scarcely remembers me now. He lived, when I last heard of him, on Lexington Avenue, and his name is Absalom Peters."
"And he is rich?"
"Yes, very rich, I believe."
"I have a great mind to ask for a day's vacation from Mr. Crawford, and go to New York to see him."
"I am afraid it would do no good."
"It would do no harm, except that it would cost something for traveling expenses. But I would go as economically as possible. Have I your permission, mother?"
"You can do as you like, Ben; I won't forbid you, though I have little hope of its doing any good."
"Then I will try and get away Monday. To-morrow is Saturday, and I can't be spared at the store; there is always more doing, you know, on Saturday than any other day."
"I don't feel like giving any advice, Ben. Do as you please."
The next day, on his way home to dinner, Ben met his young rival of the evening previous, Tom Davenport.
"How are you, Tom?" said Ben, nodding.
"I want to speak to you, Ben Barclay," said the young aristocrat, pausing in his walk.
"Go ahead! I'm listening," said Ben.
Tom was rather annoyed at the want of respect which, in his opinion, Ben showed him, but hardly knew how to express his objections, so he came at once to the business in hand.
"You'd better not hang around Rose Gardiner so much," he said superciliously.
"What do you mean by that?" demanded Ben quickly.
"You forced your attentions on her last evening at the Town Hall."
"Who told you so?"
"I saw it for myself."
"I thought Rose didn't tell you so."
"It must be disagreeable to her family to have a common grocer's boy seen with her."
"It seems to me you take a great deal of interest in the matter, Tom Davenport. You talk as if you were the guardian of the young lady. I believe you wanted to go home with her yourself."
"It would have been far more suitable, but you had made her promise to go with you."
"I would have released her from her promise at once, if she had expressed a wish to that effect. Now, I want to give you a piece of advice."
"I don't want any of your advice," said Tom loftily. "I don't want any advice from a store boy."
"I'll give it to you all the same. You can make money by minding your own business."
"You are impudent!" said Tom, flushing with anger. "I've got something more to tell you. You'll be out on the sidewalk before three months are over. Father is going to foreclose the mortgage on your house."
"That remains to be seen!" said Ben, but his heart sank within him as he realized that the words would probably prove true.
CHAPTER X BEN GOES TO NEW YORK
Pentonville was thirty-five miles distant from New York, and the fare was a dollar, but an excursion ticket, carrying a passenger both ways, was only a dollar and a half. Ben calculated that his extra expenses, including dinner, might amount to fifty cents, thus making the cost of the trip two dollars. This sum, small as it was, appeared large both to Ben and his mother. Some doubts about the expediency of the journey suggested themselves to Mrs. Barclay.
"Do you think you had better go, Ben?" she said doubtfully. "Two dollars would buy you some new stockings and handkerchiefs."
"I will do without them, mother. Something has got to be done, or we shall be turned into the street when three months are up. Squire Davenport is a very selfish man, and he will care nothing for our comfort or convenience."
"That is true," said the widow, with a sigh. "If I thought your going to New York would do any good, I would not grudge you the money—"
"Something will turn up, or I will turn up something," said Ben confidently.
When he asked Mr. Crawford for a day off, the latter responded: "Yes, Ben, I think I can spare you, as Monday is not a very busy day. Would you be willing to do an errand for me?"
"Certainly Mr. Crawford, with pleasure."
"I need a new supply of prints. Go to Stackpole & Rogers, No. – White Street, and select me some attractive patterns. I shall rely upon your taste."
"Thank you, sir," said Ben, gratified by the compliment.
He received instructions as to price and quantity, which he carefully noted down.
"As it will save me a journey, not to speak of my time, I am willing to pay your fare one way."
"Thank you, sir; you are very kind."
Mr. Crawford took from the money drawer a dollar, and handed it to Ben.
"But I buy an excursion ticket, so that my fare each way will be but seventy-five cents."
"Never mind, the balance will go toward your dinner."
"There, mother, what do you say now?" said Ben, on Saturday night. "Mr. Crawford is going to pay half my expenses, and I am going to buy some goods for him."
"I am glad he reposes so much confidence in you, Ben. I hope you won't lose his money."
"Oh, I don't carry any. He buys on thirty days. All I have to do is to select the goods."
"Perhaps it is for the best that you go, after all," said Mrs.
Barclay. "At any rate, I hope so."
At half-past seven o'clock on Monday morning Ben stood on the platform of the Pentonville station, awaiting the arrival of the train.
"Where are you going?" said a voice.
Ben, turning, saw that it was Tom Davenport who had spoken.
"I am going to New York," he answered briefly.
"Has Crawford discharged you?"
"Why do you ask? Would you like to apply for the position?" asked Ben coolly.
"Do you think I would condescend to be a grocer's boy?" returned Tom disdainfully.
"I don't know."
"If I go into business it will be as a merchant."
"I am glad to hear it."
"You didn't say what you were going to New York for?"
"I have no objection to tell you, as you are anxious to know; I am going to the city to buy goods."
Tom looked not only amazed, but incredulous.
"That's a likely story," said he, after a pause.
"It is a true story."
"Do you mean to say Crawford trusts you buy goods for him?"
"So it seems."
"He must be getting weak-headed."
"Suppose you call and give him that gratifying piece of information."
Just then the train came thundering up, and Ben jumped aboard. Tom Davenport looked after him with a puzzled glance.
"I wonder whether that boy tells the truth," he said to himself. "He thinks too much of himself, considering what he is."
It never occurred to Tom that the remark would apply even better to him than the boy he was criticising. As a rule we are the last to recognize our own faults, however quick we may be to see the faults of others.
Two hours later Ben stood in front of the large dry-goods jobbing house of Stackpole & Rogers, in White Street.
He ascended the staircase to the second floor, which was very spacious and filled with goods in great variety.
"Where is the department of prints?" he inquired of a young man near the door.
He was speedily directed and went over at once. He showed the salesman in charge a letter from Mr. Crawford, authorizing him to select a certain amount of goods.
"You are rather a young buyer," said the salesman, smiling.
"It is the first time I have served in that way," said Ben modestly; "but I know pretty well what Mr. Crawford wants."
Half an hour was consumed in making his selections.
"You have good taste," said the salesman, "judging from your selections."
"Thank you."
"If you ever come to the city to look for work, come here, and I will introduce you to the firm."
"Thank you. How soon can you ship the goods?"
"I am afraid not to-day, as we are very busy. Early next week we will send them."
His business concluded, Ben left the store and walked up to Broadway. The crowded thoroughfare had much to interest him. He was looking at a window when someone tapped him on the shoulder.
It was a young man foppishly attired, who was smiling graciously upon him.
"Why, Gus Andre," he said, "when did you come to town, and how did you leave all the folks in Bridgeport?"
"You have made a mistake," said Ben.
"Isn't your name Gus Andre?"
"No, it is Ben Barclay, from Pentonville."
"I really beg your pardon. You look surprisingly like my friend Gussie."
Five minutes later there was another tap on our hero's shoulder, as he was looking into another window, and another nicely dressed young man said heartily: "Why, Ben, my boy, when did you come to town?"
"This morning," answered Ben. "You seem to know me, but I can't remember you."
"Are you not Ben Barclay, of Pentonville."
"Yes, but–"
"Don't you remember Jim Fisher, who passed part of the summer, two years since, in your village?"
"Where were you staying?" asked Ben.
It was the other's turn to looked confused.
"At—the Smiths'," he answered, at random.
"At Mrs. Roxana Smith's?" suggested Ben.
"Yes, yes," said the other eagerly, "she is my aunt."
"Is she?" asked Ben, with a smile of amusement, for he had by this time made up his mind as to the character of his new friend. "She must be proud of her stylish nephew. Mrs. Smith is a poor widow, and takes in washing."
"It's some other Smith," said the young man, discomfited.
"She is the only one by that name in Pentonville."
Jim Fisher, as he called himself, turned upon his heel and left Ben without a word. It was clear that nothing could be made out of him.
Ben walked all the way up Broadway, as far as Twenty-first Street, into which he turned, and walked eastward until he reached Gramercy Park, opposite which Lexington Avenue starts. In due time he reached the house of Mr. Absalom Peters, and, ascending the steps, he rang the bell.
"Is Mr. Peters in?" he asked of the servant who answered the bell.
"No."
"Will he be in soon?"
"I guess not. He sailed for Europe last week."
Ben's heart sank within him. He had hoped much from Mr. Peters, before whom he meant to lay all the facts of his mother's situation. Now that hope was crushed.
He turned and slowly descended the steps.
"There goes our last chance of saving the house," he said to himself sadly.