In his private office in the poor, shabby building, in which for reasons
best known to himself he had chosen to establish his place of business,
the tall saturnine black bearded and altogether mysterious character
known already to some of our readers sat busy with books and letters.
In the outer office his bookkeeper stood at his tall desk pausing now
and then to talk to those who came in, intent on some business errand,
and once in a while referring some particular person to his master who
sat in the inside room.
It was just twelve o’clock and during the morning all sorts of people
had been coming and going in and out of that dingy little place of
business. Some of the visitors were well to do in appearance while
others looked as if poverty and misfortune had long since claimed them
as their own. Some were men and others women, and there were three or
four children among the clients of the place. If the visitors were
noticeable for any one thing it was for the stealthy and mysterious
manner in which they entered and made known their wishes to the
bookkeeper who stood guard at the outer office. This functionary, by the
way, seemed to be well acquainted with nearly every one that called, and
he usually had a word of greeting that was sometimes pleasant sometimes
sarcastic and often contemptuous. To a man with a cast in his eye who
slouched cautiously in after having scanned the neighborhood from under
his hat for at least three minutes before entering, the bookkeeper said
jocosely:
“Well what have you got for us to-day? Any nice loose diamonds or a few
watch cases?”
“Hush!” exclaimed the visitor warily as he laid his finger-against his
nose, “you’re always talking foolishly. Can I have a word with the boss
to-day?”
“I guess so; you’re a pretty good customer here. So you may walk right
in.” The visitor tip-toed into the private room, closed the door behind
him, drew his chair up beside the tall saturnine man who was still busy
with his pen, and whispered something in his ear that caused him to sit
bolt upright and gaze sharply and with amazement in the face of his
visitor. For fully an hour the man with the cast in his eye remained in
the inner office and when he finally withdrew, the other accompanied him
to the door and stood for a moment talking earnestly to him in a low
voice before he permitted him to depart. Then he went back to his desk,
and his face as he passed through the room, was so stern and troubled
that one or two visitors who were seated awaiting his pleasure viewed
him carefully, then shook their heads and departed, preferring to talk
to him at some time when they should find him in better humor. As for
the visitors they all came with one object in view which was money, for
the well dressed man who sat at the desk in the inner office made a
business of lending money at exorbitant rates of interest and on all
sorts securities.
“But why,” some reader might inquire, “should a man of good connections
and education embark in such a business and select as his headquarters a
dirty cheap office in a poverty stricken part of the town?”
And the reply is that he selected a neighborhood in which he knew money
to be a scarce commodity, and which all his clients, the high as well as
the low, could visit without fear of detection. As has been already said
he had clients of various classes. There was one man, for example, who
could be found almost any evening in some fashionable club or
drawing-room up town and who, on the very morning of which we write, had
spent nearly half an hour in that little private office. This man had
debts amounting to $25,000, and a father whose fortune of a million he
had reasonable hopes of acquiring in due course of time. But his father
was a man of the strictest honor, and the son well knew that if he were
to hear of his losses at cards and horse racing he would cut him off
without a dollar, and leave all his money to a distant cousin whom he
had always detested. Situated as he was, this man found the money-lender
of Eldridge Street a most convenient friend, and it was an easy matter
for the latter to persuade him that for the use of ten or fifteen
thousand dollars in cash with which to appease the most importunate of
his creditors, he could well afford to give a note for five times the
amount payable after the death of his parent.
“And even now,” continued the money lender, shaking his head as he
handed him a large roll of bills, “I am taking risks that I ought not to
take with you or with anybody else. How do I know that you will outlive
your father? How do I know that the old man will leave you anything when
he dies? How do I know even that he has got anything to leave, or that
having it now he will have it a year hence? These are ticklish times,
and if I were a prudent business man, without anything of the speculator
in me, I would just hang on to what money I’ve got, and let you and the
rest of them like you shift for yourselves. I’ve half a mind now,” he
added, suddenly, as he tightened his grip on the greenbacks, which had
not quite passed out of his hand, “to tear your note up and put the
money back in my safe.” But at this threat his visitor snatched the
coveted roll from his hand, placed it in his inside pocket, and
buttoning his coat up tightly, exclaimed, “Don’t talk to me about the
chances you take, Mr. Shylock, when you know perfectly well that I’m
good for anything I put my name to, and that it won’t be long before you
get your own again with a pound of my flesh into the bargain.”
It will be seen from this conversation that the mysterious bearded man
had a keen eye for business, and as his little shop was full of
customers from morning till night, one may readily believe that he made
a large income with very little mental or physical exertion on his part.
It was just one o’clock when, having disposed of his visiter with the
cast in his eye, the money-lender sat behind his desk with his cigar in
his mouth, lost in thought. Something must have troubled him for his
brow was ruffled and from time to time an angry blush crept into his
cheek. One might have noticed too—had there been any one there to notice
him—that he started uneasily at every sound that came from the little
outer room and finally when he heard a woman’s voice raised in shrill
anger he stepped to the door, listened for a moment or so and then come
out to see what was the matter. It was an old Irish woman who stood with
a package in her hand talking angrily to the bookkeeper.
“An’ sure you’ll not refuse a poor old woman the loan of a ten dollar
note on these little bits of things?” she was saying in a voice that
betrayed her peevishness and annoyance.
“Can’t give you anything to-day, madam,” returned the bookkeeper
speaking very positively and then, noticing his employer he added,
“There’s the boss himself, and he’ll tell you the same thing.”
But the “boss” had already caught a glimpse of the old Irish woman’s
face, and to the intense surprise of his subordinate he retreated
suddenly into his private room, banged the door after him and then
thinking better of his act, opened it wide enough to say in a low and
guarded whisper, “Give the old woman what she wants and bring the
package in to me. Get her address, too, while you’re about it.”
The bookkeeper did as he was ordered. And as the old woman wrote her
name on the receipt with trembling fingers she uttered: “Now remember,
I’ll be back for this when my allowance comes. But me friends are coming
back from Europe soon and they will never let old Ann Crehan go hungry.
They’ll all be back, the master and Miss Emma and the two young children
and then I’ll have everything I want. An’ it’ll be a sorry day for that
hard-hearted spalpeen who forgot the one who took care of him and will
let her go to the poorhouse for the want of a few dollars. Sure his fine
old uncle would never threat me in that fashion.”
As the old woman departed, the clerk took the package into the inner
office and laid it before his employer, and the latter before opening
the paper shut and bolted the door. He found nothing within but a few
thin and worn silver spoons and an old fashioned open-faced gold watch.
Inside of the case was the following inscription
“FOR FIDELITY AND COURAGE
TO ANN CREHAN
FROM SAMUEL DEXTER.”
Well did that strong, bearded man, whose face, with its deep lines and
heavy, overhanging brow, was an index to his passionate, wilful nature,
know what that inscription meant. It carried him back in memory to a
bright, spring morning, years ago, when this same old woman, whose
tottering footsteps had just passed over his threshold, was a servant in
the family of his kinsman, Samuel Dexter, with whom he, an orphan boy,
had found a home. Well did he recall that day, and the accident through
which he might have lost his life had it not been for the courage of the
Irish servant, who rushed at the peril of her own life, into a burning
building, and snatched from the flames the two children who had been
committed to her care.
The fierce red scar across his cheek had remained a vivid reminder of
that day, and he remembered how, throughout his youth and early manhood,
he had always hated his young kinsman, who had been with him in the
flames, but who had escaped without disfigurement. Well, the kinsman had
long ago passed to his final reward, and he was living still, with the
red scar on his face but half concealed by the thick, stiff beard. He
folded up the paper containing the watch and the pieces of silver, and
put the package carefully away in his safe.
“It’s a lucky thing for me, that the old creature didn’t recognize me
when I put my head through the door,” he said to himself. “I’ll have to
be more careful in the future about showing myself down here, for one
never knows who is going to turn up. Everybody wants money, and there
are none too proud to come down here to this dirty street and ask for
it. It’s a great thing, money, and it’s the lack of it that puts all men
on the same footing.”