The storm of wind and rain lasted through the night; straight out of
the north it washed and blew sturdily, and with the deep voice of fall.
By dawn the rain had abated; but the wind continued to blow shrewdly,
and there was a cut to it, a keenness that hadn't been felt since the
early spring.
It was six o'clock when Anthony arose; he looked from his window into
Sassafras Street; the way was drenched clean; the gutters were full of
running rainwater; and the tang in the air caught his attention.
"A little more!" said he. "Let the wind hold in the north another day,
and we'll have frost."
And hold to the north it did; not only for another day, but for two
days; and under its cold, clear breath of a night a thin ice began
to form in the hollows. It got under the sickly miasma of the city
and scattered it across the world. The death-rate dropped like magic;
people took heart and regarded life with a new eye; even those who had
clung to the heights in fear began in thought to venture back; and
those who had held to the town, facing death and fighting the advance
of the pestilence, allowed their nerves to go slack, and rested from
their labors, white and worn and all but beaten.
It was the second day after the change that Anthony was summoned to the
counting-house; immediately upon his entering, Tom Horn said:
"Your uncle is in his room."
Anthony knocked and went in. Charles sat at a table with Captain Weir;
he looked haggard, as well he might, for in the last weeks of the
plague his efforts had been tireless, and he had slept little. But, for
all, there was a smile in his eyes, and his manner was as light as of
old.
"Why, now," said he, "you're prompt."
"There is something for me to do?"
"Something which _I_ should do," admitted Charles, "only I have a
distaste for such things. But if you are so minded, you can attend to
it very well."
"I am quite ready," said Anthony.
Weir looked at Charles, who drummed upon the edge of the table with his
finger-tips and seemed at a loss for words with which to frame what was
in his mind. But, with an effort, he finally said:
"Things do not always go as smoothly as one could wish; not even with
Rufus Stevens' Sons, as," with a look at Anthony, "you've had occasion
to see. Some time since, for one reason or another, it was needful that
ready money in some quantity be on hand, and I was forced to go to
old Bulfinch for it. The bills," said Charles, "are coming due, and,
Bulfinch being dead, I'd like an arrangement of some sort with his sons
that would carry the matter over to a more convenient time."
"And is it your thought that I should speak to them?"
"If, as I've said, you have the mind to."
"It may be as well to go at once," said Anthony.
"Now, there's an excellent, ready-handed fellow," beamed Charles. "I
would to God I had a talent for such things; but I have none--not a
bit. And it plagues me to see matters needing doing, and I with no way
of arranging them. So go to these rascals," said Charles, as he stood
up, and patted Anthony smilingly on the shoulder, "and bargain with
them to as good effect as you can. If they demand a large increase in
their usance, pay it, with a prayer that one day the devil may take
them both."
"I'll do what I can," said Anthony.
"In some months more," said Charles lightly, "we'll laugh at all their
kind, for the _Rufus Stevens_ will have rounded the bend by then, and
we'll have dazzled the market as it's never been dazzled before." As
Anthony was about to go, Charles continued, "Weir has business in your
direction, I think." Weir nodded to Anthony. "Suppose you take him as
far as the entrance to the fox's den," smiled Charles, to the captain.
"You may have a word of advice for him."
The two set out; and Captain Weir talked of the money-lender as a
species, and of those of the Algerian coast in particular. They turned
off Third Street and into Harmony Court with its shabby, leering
buildings, its dusty windows and dirty passages. There was a trimly
dressed quadroon maid standing in a shabby doorway, and Captain Weir
eyed her keenly. Seeing the name of Bulfinch upon the shutter of the
place, Anthony paused. But, before he could speak, Weir, still with his
eye upon the quadroon maid, said:
"Now that I'm here, I'll step up with you. I may be of service, and my
other business can wait."
Though surprised at this, Anthony said nothing. So they climbed the
crooked, narrow stairs together and groped in the dark passage for the
handle of Bulfinch's door. Within, their long legs stuck under a meager
table, and grinning like a pair of gargoyles, sat the twins, Nathaniel
and Rehoboam; and before them stood Mademoiselle Lafargue.
"We are sorry," Nathaniel was saying. "We are very sorry. But we no
longer have this matter in charge."
"The money was had of you, I believe," said the girl.
"Of my father; but the bill was sold some time since," said Rehoboam.
"Nevens, a broker on the floor below, was the purchaser. It was he who
sent you the message, no doubt; and it's with him you'll have to deal."
The girl was moving toward the door; Anthony opened it for her, and
went with her out into the passage.
"It is some distance to your lodging-place," he said. "Must you return
alone?"
"My maid is awaiting me below," she said.
"Is there anything I can do?" he asked.
"I'm afraid not," she said in a troubled voice. "It's a matter of my
father's--money borrowed at a time when it was much needed. They have
begun to press him for it; he's greatly distressed, for he had been
given to understand that he had his own time to pay it in."
Anthony frowned.
"That has not the sound of a usurer's articles," said he.
He watched her down-stairs, then reëntered Bulfinch's counting-room.
Nathaniel was speaking, addressing Weir, and his voice was pitched high
in complaint.
"The sum she speaks of was gotten from our father, a man so old that he
was in his dotage, and who must needs pay out moneys on undated paper.
And a round sum, too, in Dutch pieces, and the bill with never a name
of any substance on it."
Anthony came at once to the matter at hand: Weir stood by the table and
listened composedly.
"More time!" said Nathaniel, in almost a shriek. "Rufus Stevens' Sons
asking more time! You are joking!"
"Three months' extension is desired on the note due to-morrow," said
Anthony bluntly, a transcript of the bill in his hand.
"A man who asks for time these days asks for hard money," said
Rehoboam. "He is demanding minted gold. And money of any kind was never
scarcer."
"We should like to oblige you--" began Nathaniel, but Anthony stopped
him.
"What terms will you make for another three months? You've done your
worst here, it seems to me," glancing at the paper; "no man with bowels
could ask for more."
"Consider!" said Nathaniel. "Think of what _we_ must pay for money."
"Think," said Rehoboam, "of the charges, interests, bonuses, asked of
us in each transaction."
"To save your words and my patience," said Anthony, "let us restate the
present terms in the new bill."
"With an added twenty-five per cent. to fit the altered times, said
Nathaniel eagerly. "And that will cover but half of what it will cost
us."
"Twenty-five!" Rehoboam looked horrified. "Twenty-five? Brother, you
are going mad! How can you talk such a sum as twenty-five per cent.
when--"
"I'll give ten," said Anthony, interrupting him. "So make out the
paper, and let's have an end to the matter."
With many lamentations, but with sly glances of glee, the twins set
about drawing up a new bill for Charles' signature; this they gave to
Anthony, protesting that they were undone and that ruin itself would
not surprise them. But the young man buttoned it up in his breast
pocket with plain unbelief; then he gave them a curt nod and left the
room, with Captain Weir behind him. At the next landing Weir paused.
"Mademoiselle Lafargue," said he. "Has she left this place?"
"No," said Anthony. "She has gone to speak to the other leech of whom
they told her."
"Nevens was the name, I think," said Weir. He made it out, painted
upon a door in the darkest corner of an obscure passage. "If you
don't mind," said he, "we shall go in for a moment. We may be of some
assistance."
Anthony readily followed him into a low-ceilinged room, where
daylight crept through the dirty glass of a single window. Huddles of
time-stained and dusty papers were upon shelves, and in cubbyholes, and
impaled upon hooks. A crazy old desk was all but buried under them; a
corner cupboard was so gorged that papers bulged from doors and drawers
that could not have been closed for years.
A little man with a short nose, a snuffy neck-cloth, and red-rimmed
eyes was talking with Mademoiselle Lafargue. She turned a look upon
Anthony that was surprised and grateful.
"Good day to you, gentlemen," said the little man in a squeaky voice.
"I will give you my best attention in a moment." To the girl he said:
"Pay heed to what I tell you. Women are not fitted for the carrying of
important words. Say to your father that he is the person I desire to
see. And I must see him immediately."
Weir stepped toward the usurer.
"Might I ask why, Mr. Nevens?" said he.
The man put his hand behind his ear, forming a sort of cup; he screwed
his face into an expression of great interest and squeaked:
"Hey? I am hard of hearing."
"It happens," said Weir to the girl, "that I know something of the
operations of this man, and I thought that Mr. Stevens and myself might
be of some help to you."
"The matter that brings Mademoiselle Lafargue here," said Anthony,
"seems to be a paper of her father's."
"I know its nature," said Weir. "After you had stepped out into the
passage up-stairs, the Bulfinches talked quite openly of it."
While they were speaking the broker kept his hand cupped behind his
ear, while his eyes searched their faces like those of some sly little
animal.
"Eh?" said he. "What do you say? Speak up. My hearing is not of the
best."
"If you'll permit me," said Weir to the girl, "I can probably save your
father a journey here and the exasperation he'd be sure to feel in
dealing with a man like this." Without waiting for a reply he turned to
Nevens. "Now, sir," he said, "a word with you."
Nevens seemed to get Weir's purpose,--perhaps it was from his
attitude,--and he began to gesticulate excitedly.
"My business is with her father," he said. "It is a private matter,
a transaction between us two, and has to do with a bit of commercial
paper."
"Quite so," said Weir. "Have the goodness to permit me to see that
paper."
"Eh?" Nevens seemed straining to hear. "What do you say?"
"Show me the bill."
"You must speak louder," said Nevens. "My hearing is not good. Once
it was excellent; I heard everything; but it has grown quite bad. In
dealing with me you must speak plainly; even then, sometimes," and he
shook his head, "I scarce hear a word."
"And this, I take it, is one of the times," said Weir dryly.
"Nevertheless," and he looked fixedly into the little ferret's face and
spoke slowly, "I think you'll understand what I'm going to say. First,
it's very well known that you are a mere instrument of the Bulfinches;
the bills they place in your hands under the pretense that you have
bought them they know to be desperate ones and not easily realized."
"I will speak with her father," said Nevens, hopping about. "I cannot
hear you. And I do not know you. It's her father who must pay, and it's
he who must present himself."
"Second," said Weir composedly, "this bill names no definite time for
payment; it states no rate of interest; it bears no indorser's name."
"Must I be robbed!" cried Nevens. "Am I to be dragooned and my money
mishandled because it was loaned generously."
"It may have been generosity," said Weir, "but it was old Amos Bulfinch
who loaned it, and, having known him, I'm tempted to believe it was
something else."
"My money!" chattered Nevens, on tiptoe with excitement. "I'll have it.
Is there no law to touch such cases? Is there no honesty in the world?"
But Weir motioned Anthony to open the door for Mademoiselle Lafargue;
and they went out, leaving the little broker still hopping and
shrilling his protests. On the sidewalk Weir gravely lifted his tall
beaver hat.
"Pay no attention to any further communication from this man," he said
to the girl. "The note, from Nathaniel Bulfinch's own word, is as I've
stated. It need be paid only when your father feels perfectly able to
pay it, and it bears no interest whatsoever."
He bowed to her and, with a nod to Anthony, went on his way toward
Fourth Street. And as Anthony and the girl walked in the opposite
direction there was a silence between them. Then the girl said:
"That was thoughtful and kind."
"Weir is both," said Anthony. "He is a reticent man, with little warmth
in his look; but more than once he has shown himself to me as a friend
worth having."
"I have been holding him wrongly in my mind," said the girl. "I had
thought him my enemy."
"You once thought I was your enemy," said Anthony, and he smiled.
"I've been very foolish," she said. "I've misjudged you all. I thought
you selfish, and I thought Captain Weir cold and cruel. Some time
since," and she lifted her fine eyes to him with an honesty that
thrilled him, "I saw I was wrong in my thoughts of you; and now I see
that I have also been unjust to Captain Weir. For that man must be very
kindly, indeed, who will go out of his way to serve one who he knows
detests him."
And Weir's lips, as he went his way down the street, were twisted into
a wry smile; and his eyes were also smiling the cunning, purposeful
smile of the cat.