mate of the _Anne Traylor_, and he'd heard of the death of her old
captain on the _Saucy Jane_, and that we'd bought some of his effects,
and he'd like to have a memento; just a matter of sentiment, he
explained. I asked him what form the sentiment took, and he said a
ditty-box; and if we had the one that belonged to the old man he'd give
two pounds five for it. I put him off like the others.
"Two Swedish sailors came in after the shutters were up, while the door
was still open. They wanted a ditty-box of the identical description. I
told them I'd look for it, same as I told the rest. You always brought
me up not to close too soon with a customer who was keen on a thing."
"Very good, Isaac," I said. "Very good! Go on!"
"In the evening I made inquiries at the 'Duke of Wellington,' where the
dock policemen go, and the two-penny-halfpenny money lenders and such;
and old Mrs. Higgins, the landlady, knows more about the crews that come
here than anyone. Lots of them knew old Markby, it seemed; a very
respectable old chap and a favorite with his men, but a bit of a miser,
and a trifle queer in his ways. He boasted that he didn't believe in
banks and such things, and he'd got his money hidden where even his wife
didn't know. And the conclusion I've come to is that those chaps believe
it's in the ditty-box, and they mean to have it."
"Ah!" I said. "We'll have something to say to that, Isaac! You told them
we hadn't got it, of course."
"Of course," he said; "and of course they didn't believe me! I had a
rare bother with the ginger-haired man yesterday morning, and had to
send the boy for a policeman before he'd go. And in the afternoon the
Swedes tried to sneak through the shop into the warehouse, but I jumped
out of the shop parlor and hustled them off. I've put longer screws in
the bars to the windows; but I'd be easier if you'd let me sleep here."
Isaac always thought that he could look after me better than I could
look after myself!
"I'm all right, Isaac," I said; "but we'll have a look at the box before
you go. It might be worth a bit more if it had a secret drawer, eh?"
When the shop was closed we went upstairs and laid the box on my bed,
and turned it over and tapped it, and put a lamp inside, and examined
every inch. We couldn't find a trace of a secret drawer, or anything
scratched on it to say where the old captain had hidden his long
stocking. So I concluded that the talk was the usual nonsense, and I
daresay I'd have sold it and thought no more about it, if the
goat's-beard man hadn't come in the first thing the next morning. He
didn't beat about the bush, but said he wanted Captain Markby's ditty-box
that we'd bought, and he'd give two pounds ten for it. I told him I
wished I'd got it to sell, since he was so generous, but ditty-boxes
weren't in my line.
The others that Isaac had spoken of came in too. I was tempted to sell
it to the mate for three pounds, but I couldn't quite make up my mind,
and told him to come again the next morning. That very night the two
Swedes broke into the shop. The police caught them. They're always on
the look-out round my place, knowing that it's a fiver to them on the
quiet if they catch anyone breaking in. The Swedes got three months
apiece.
That made up my mind. I showed the mate an ordinary box when he called,
and he went off grumbling that it was nothing like the one he'd asked
about, and I'd played the fool with him. I never saw him again, or the
Swedes either; but the old man and the ginger-headed chap were always
looking in the window. They seemed to have chummed up. I had an
anonymous letter that I put down to them--written in red ink that I
suppose they meant me to take for blood. It warned me against keeping "a
ditty-box that others have a better claim to, and is like to cost you
dear." D-e-r-e they spelt it, and one t in ditty.
Two days later they called to ask if the box had come my way yet. "Yes,"
I said, "and I'm going to keep it. It's got two blackguards three
months, and it will get two others a good hiding if they don't mind.
Clear out, and don't come here again." They didn't, but we often saw
them hanging round, and when I went out one of them generally followed
me. I didn't worry about that, for I could have settled the two of them
easily if I wasn't taken unaware. I was always a bit obstinate, and I'd
sooner have chopped the chest up for firewood than have been bullied
into letting them have it; but I was sorry that I hadn't taken the
mate's offer, for Isaac and I had measured it all over inside and out,
and calculated that there wasn't space anywhere for a secret drawer.
I'd had it about three months; and then a young girl, about twenty, came
into the shop one afternoon, when Isaac was at tea. She was a pale slip
of a young thing, and her clothes looked as if they'd been worn all
through the summer, and it was autumn then; and she hesitated as if she
was half afraid of me.
"Well, little missie," I said. "What is it?" I spoke to her with the
smooth side of my tongue uppermost, as a big, rough chap generally does
to a girl of that sort, if there's anything decent about him.
"My father was Captain Markby," she said, and I liked the way she spoke.
"He died at sea, and they sold his things here. I want to find something
of his, and I thought that perhaps you might have bought it?"
I knew directly what she meant, but I looked very innocent.
"If it was anything in the curiosity line, I might have," I answered.
"You see the sort of things I deal in." I waved my hand round the place.
"No," she said. "It wasn't a curiosity. It was an oak chest with brass
corners. I think they call it a ditty-box."
"A ditty-box," I said. "They're too common to be curious. Was there
anything special about it?"
"It had a tray in it, and he'd drawn a head on it with a red-hot iron; a
girl's head. He meant it for me; but I don't expect you'd recognize me
by it. I hope not!" She smiled faintly.
"I hope not," I agreed, "judging from what I've seen of such figures." I
laughed, and she laughed a little, too. "And you want to buy it, if you
can find it?"
"Ye-es," she said. "At least--I haven't very much money; but I would pay
you as soon as I could, if--I suppose you wouldn't be so kind--so very
kind--as to agree to that?"
"Umph!" I said. "I don't generally give credit; but as it was your
father's, I might stretch a point for once if I should find that I have
it."
"Oh, _thank_ you!" she said with a flush. "It is a kindness that I have
no right to expect. _Thank_ you!"
"I'll have a look round among my things," I promised. "I haven't bought
such a box myself; but my assistant might have; or I might be able to
find it for you in some of the shops round here. I'll see what I can
do." I meant to let her have it, but I wanted to find out more about it
first.
"How kind you are!" she cried. "I--you see I want it very particularly,
Mr. Levy."
"Being associated with your father," I said, "naturally you would.
Perhaps if I don't come across the ditty-box, I might find something
else of his that would do, eh?"
"No-o," she said. "It wouldn't. You see we--my mother and I--aren't well
off. We knew that father had some money, but we couldn't find it, or
learn anything about it; and we think it must be in the box, or a paper
telling us about it."
I shook my head.
"There's no paper in any box that I have," I assured her. "We always go
through the things that we buy very carefully."
"You wouldn't find it," she explained eagerly. "There was a secret
place. He showed it to me when I was a little girl. I don't expect he
thought I would remember, but I did. You take off the brass corners on
top, and then the lower part of the lid drops out. The lid's in two
pieces and you could put papers--or bank notes--in between."
I couldn't help smiling.
"Aren't you rather foolish to tell me?" I suggested.
She looked at me appealingly.
"Am I?" she asked.
"No," I said. "As it happens, you aren't; but I wouldn't tell anyone
else, if I were you. They _might_ think they'd like those bank notes for
themselves. _I_ might if--well, if you weren't a good deal younger and
more in need of them than I am."
"I think you are a very good and kind man, Mr. Levy," she said solemnly.
"I'm afraid not, little missie," I told her; "but there are some a good
deal worse; and some of them have an inkling of what may be in that box,
if I'm not mistaken. They've been inquiring after it."
"Oh!" She started. "There were two horrid men who seemed to be watching
me when I came in here. I half thought I remembered one of them: an old
man with a stoop. I believe I must have seen him aboard my father's
ship. I felt rather nervous--because it's such a dark alley." She looked
anxiously at the door.
"It is a bit dark," I agreed. "Would you feel safer if I saw you to a
main thoroughfare?"
"I should feel _quite_ safe then," she declared, and she smiled like a
child does. "I really don't know _how_ to thank you enough for your
goodness to me."
I called Isaac to look after the shop, and put on my hat and walked off
with her. She was a bright little creature to talk to, and when she was
excited she looked very pretty. I found that she was going to walk all
the way, so I said that I would see her right to her road. She seemed
pleased to have my company, and jabbered nineteen to the dozen. It was
such a change to have someone to talk to, she said, because they had
moved and knew nobody here. She told me that she tried to earn money by
teaching music and by painting. I said that I was badly in want of a few
little sketches, and she promised to bring some for me to look at.
"I would ask you to accept them," she said, with a flush, "if we weren't
so poor."
"If it weren't for that," I said, "I should ask you to have some tea
before I leave you, without fear that you would be too proud to accept.
It would be a pleasure to me. Will you?" We were just outside a good
place, and I stopped.
"It is very kind of you," she said, "but I don't think--I suppose I _am_
foolishly proud." She laughed an uneasy laugh.
"You mustn't let your pride spoil my pleasure," I told her, and grinned
at myself for talking like a book. "You can repay me when you find your
fortune, if you insist; but I hope you won't."
She looked up at me quickly.
"No," she said. "I couldn't treat your kindness like that. Thank you,
Mr. Levy."
So we went in, and I ordered tea and chicken and cakes. The poor little
thing was positively hungry, I could see; and when she mentioned her
mother the tears came into her eyes. I understood what she was thinking,
and I had some meat patties put up in a package. When I left her at the
corner of her road I put the package into her hands, and boarded a 'bus
with a run before she had time to object. She shook her head at me when
I was on top of the 'bus; but when I took off my hat she waved her hand,
and laughed as if she was a great mind to cry. It's hard for an old
woman and a young girl when they're left like that.
I had the corners of that ditty-box off as soon as Isaac had gone for
the night. The lid was double, as she had said. Between the two boards I
found a portrait of an elderly woman--her mother, no doubt--and three
photos of herself; two in short frocks and one with her hair in a plait
when she was about seventeen. She looked stouter and jollier then, poor
girl. There was one other thing: a half sheet of note-paper. "Memo in
case of accident. Money up chimney in best bedroom. Geo. Markby, sixth
of April, 1897."
I started to change my clothes to go there and tell them; but just as I
had taken off my waistcoat I altered my mind. The money wouldn't be in
the rooms where they lived then, but in their old house; and that was
probably occupied by someone else now, and even if the money was still
there she would not be able to get it. It was no use raising her hopes,
just to disappoint her. I would try to get the money before I spoke, I
decided.
She came at eleven the next morning, and timidly produced a few little
sketches, mostly copies of things. I'd like to say that they were good,
but I can't. It was just schoolgirl painting, nothing else. She wanted
to give me some, but I wouldn't hear of that. She had sold a few for
eighteenpence apiece, she said. I said that I wanted four to frame for
ships' cabins, and I'd give twelve-and-six for them, and that would
leave me a fair margin. I was afraid to offer more, for fear she would
suspect me; and as it was she was dubious.
"You're sure you _will_ get a profit?" she asked.
"You ask anyone round here about me," I said. "They'll soon tell you
that I look out sharp for that. They'll look very nice when they're
framed; and I make a good bit out of the frames, you see. Now about this
ditty-box. I've got on the track of one that might turn out right; but
there's a difficulty that I'd like to put to you. Suppose that there's
no money in it, only a clue to where your father hid it. Wouldn't that
be likely to be somewhere where you can't get at it? On board his ship,
for example? Or in your old house?
"If it's in the house," she said, "I could get in. At least it was empty
a week ago. Mother heard from an old neighbor. But perhaps it would be
better to get someone else to go, and say that they wanted to look at
the house?" She glanced at me doubtfully.
"You mean me?" She nodded slowly. "You are afraid that I might keep some
of it?"
She stared at me in sheer amazement.
"Why, of course not!" she cried. "I was only thinking that it was a long
way to ask you to go; and that I must not impose on your kindness."
"Give me the address," I said, "in case I should want it any time."
She gave me an address in Andeville. Then I changed the subject. I
walked part of the way home with her. Then I had my dinner and went off
to Andeville.
It was about an hour by train. By the time that I had found the agent
and got the key it was growing dusk. I was some time arguing with him,
because he wanted to send a man with me to lock up afterward. "We've had
tramps get in several times," he explained, "and they've done a lot of
damage; torn up the flooring and such senseless mischief." It occurred
to me directly that the tramps were some of the men who had come after
the ditty-box.
I persuaded him at last that I'd lock up all right and he let me go
alone. I soon spotted what would be the best bedroom. I fumbled up the
chimney and lit a match or two, and found a heavy canvas bag and a
smaller one that rustled like notes. I was just looking for the last
time when I heard soft steps behind me. I glanced round and saw two men
before the match flickered out. The light caught the face of the
foremost. It was the old man with the goat's beard. Then I was struck on
the head and knocked senseless.
It was about six when I came to and lit another match and looked at my
watch. The bags were gone, of course. I never saw them again or the two
men. It was as well for them I didn't!
It was no use telling the agent or anybody. I never thought about that,
only what I was to do about the girl and her mother. I didn't think very
much about the mother, if you come to that. It seemed to me that I'd
made a mess of it and lost their money, and I couldn't bear to think of
the girl's disappointment. What upset me most was that I knew she'd
believe every word of my story, and never dream that I'd taken the money
myself, as some people would. She was such a trusting little thing,
and--well, I may as well own up that I liked her. If I hadn't been
fifteen years older than she was, and felt sure that she'd never look at
a Jew--and a much rougher chap then than I am now--I should have had
serious thoughts of courting her. And so--well, I knew that a hundred
pounds was what they hoped for; and it didn't make very much odds to me.
I took out the paper that night and put in twenty five-pound notes, and
did it up again. A bit of folly that you wouldn't have suspected me of,
eh? Then you think me a bigger fool than most people do! At the same
time, it was only fair and honest. I'd had her money and lost it, you
see.
I was going to take the chest to their lodgings in a cab the next
morning, but she called in early to ask if I had found it. I had an
unhappy sort of feeling when I saw her come smiling into the shop,
thinking that she wouldn't need to come any more. It's queer how a man
feels over a little slip of a girl when he's knocked about all over the
world and known hundreds of women and thought nothing of them!
I'd carried it down into this room, and I took her in and showed it.
Her delight was pretty to see. She fidgeted about at my elbow like a
child while I was taking the corners off; and when she saw the notes she
danced and clapped her hands; and when I gave them to her she sat down
and hugged them and laughed and cried.
"If you knew how poor we've been!" she said, wiping her eyes. "How
lonely and worried and miserable! Your kindness has been the only nice
thing ever since father died. Twenty times five! That's a hundred.
They're real notes aren't they? I haven't seen one for ages."
"They're real enough," I told her. "I'll give you gold for them, if you
like."
"I'd rather have their very selves," she said with a laugh. She studied
one carefully; and suddenly she dropped them with a cry and sprang to
her feet. Her face had gone white.
"Mr. Levy!" she cried. "Oh, Mr. Levy! _You put them there!_"
I told her a lie right out; and I'm not ashamed of it. I was a hard man
of business, I said; and a Jew; and she was a silly sentimental child,
or she'd never take such an idea into her head; and she needn't suppose
I kept my shop for charity, and she'd know better when she was older.
She heard me out. Then she put her hand on my shoulder.
"Dear kind friend," she said, "father died in May this year. The note
that I looked at was dated in June!" And I stood and stared at her like
a fool. I suppose I looked a bit cut up, for she stroked my arm gently.
"You dear, good fellow!" she said. She seemed to have grown from a child
into a woman in a few minutes. "I can't take them, but it will help me
to be a better girl, to have known someone like you!"
"Like me!" I said, and laughed. "I'm just--just a rough, money-grubbing
Jew. That's all I am."
She shook her head like mad.
"You may say what you like," she told me; "but you can't alter what I
think. You're good--good--good!"
Then I told her just what had happened.
"So, you see, you owe me nothing," I wound up.
She wiped her eyes and took hold of me by the sleeve.
"I will tell you what I owe you," she said. "Food when I was hungry;
kindness when I was wretched; your time, your care--yes, and the risk of
your life. If you had had your way you would have given me all that
money. You--Mr. Levy, you say that it is just a matter of business. What
profit did you expect to make?"
"I expected--to make you happy," I said; and she looked up at me
suddenly; and I saw what I saw. "Little girl!" I cried. "May I try? In
another way."
I held out my arms, and she dropped into them.
"My profits!" I said.
"Oh!" she cried. "I hope so. I will try--try--try!"
Mr. Levy offered me a fresh cigar and took another himself.
"It's a class of profit that's difficult to estimate," he remarked. "I
had a difficulty with Isaac over the matter. You see he has 5 per cent.
over the business that he introduces, but that was only meant for small
transactions, I argued. He argued that there were no profits at all; not
meaning any disrespect to her, but holding that there was no money in
it; or, if there was, it was a loss because I'd have to keep her, and
nobody knew how a wife would turn out. She held much the same, except
that she was sure she was going to turn out good; but she thought I
ought to find some plan of doing something for Isaac. We settled it that
way. He wanted to get married, so I gave him a rise and let them have
the rooms over the shop to live in; and there they are now."
"And how do you reckon the profits yourself?" I asked.
"Well," he said "in these last eight years I've cleared forty thousand
pounds, though you wouldn't think it in this little shop. I reckon that
I cleared a good bit more over that ditty-box. Come round to my house
one evening, and I'll introduce you to her."
IV
THE YELLOW CAT
An Idyll of the Summer
By ANNIE E.P. SEARING
THE minister of Blue Mountain Church, and the minister's wife, were
enjoying their first autumn fire, and the presence of the cat on the
hearth between them.
"He came home this afternoon," the minister's wife was saying, "while I
was picking those last peppers in the garden, and he jumped on my
shoulder and purred against my ear as unconcernedly as if he'd only been
for a stroll in the lower pasture, instead of gone for three months--the
little wretch!"
"It does seem extraordinary"--the minister unbent his long legs and
recrossed them carefully, in order to remove his foot from the way of
the tawny back where it stretched out in blissful elongation--"very
extraordinary, that an animal could lead that sort of double life,
disappearing completely when summer comes and returning promptly with
the fall. I daresay it's a reversion to the old hunting instinct. No
doubt we could find him if we knew how to trail him on the mountains."
"The strangest thing about it is that this year and last he came back
fat and sleek--always before, you know, he has been so gaunt and starved
looking in the fall." She leaned over and stroked the cat under his
chin; he purred deeply in response, and looked up into her eyes, his own
like wells of unfathomed speech. "I have an eerie feeling," she said,
"that if he could talk he'd have great things to tell."
The minister laughed, and puffed away at his corncob pipe. "Tales of the
chase, my dear, of hecatombs of field-mice and squirrels!"
But she shook her head. "Not this summer--that cat has spent these last
two summers with human beings who have treated him as a kind of
fetich--just as we do!" As she rubbed his ear she murmured regretfully:
"To think of all you've heard and seen and done, and you can't tell us
one thing!"
The Yellow Cat's eyes narrowed to mere slits of black across two amber
agates; then he shook his ears free, yawned, and gave himself up to
closed lids and dreams. If he could have told it all, just as it
happened, not one word of it could those good souls have
comprehended--and this was the way of it.
It was near the close of a June day when the cat made his entrance into
that hidden life of the summers from which his exits had been as sudden,
though less dramatic. In the heart of the hills, where a mountain
torrent has fretted its way for miles through a rocky gorge, there is a
place where the cleft widens into a miniature valley, and the stream
slips along quietly between banks of moss before it plunges again on its
riotous path down the mountain. Here the charcoal-burners, half a
century ago, had made a clearing, and left their dome-shaped stone kiln
to cover itself with the green velvet and lace of lichen and vine. The
man who was stooping over the water, cleaning trout for his supper, had
found it so and made it his own one time in his wandering quest for
solitude. The kiln now boasted a chimney, a door, and one wide window
that looked away over the stream's next plunge, over other mountains and
valleys to far horizons of the world of men. This was the hermitage to
which he brought his fagged-out nerves from the cormorant city that
feeds on the blood and brains of humans. Here through the brief truce of
summer he found time to fish and hunt enough for his daily wants, time
to read, to write, time to dream and to smoke his evening pipe, to think
long thoughts, and more blessed than all--to sleep! When autumn came he
would go back with renewed life and a pile of manuscript to feed to his
hungry cormorant. He was chewing the cud of contentment as he bent to
his fish cleaning, when, glancing to one side where the fire, between
stones, was awaiting his frying-pan, he caught sight among the bushes of
two gleaming eyes, and then the sleek back and lashing tail of the
Yellow Cat. The man, being a cat lover was versed in their ways, so for
a time he paid no attention, then began to talk softly.
"If you'd come out of that," he said, as he scraped the scales, "and not
sit there watching me like a Comanche Indian, I'd invite you to supper!"