THE FIRM OF ADONIRAM PEPPER & CO.
LEAVING his bag and gun case at the hotel. Brandon Tarr started out by
nine o’clock on the following morning, his first aim being to find and
interview the sailor who had already visited Chopmist for the purpose
of seeing him.
“Caleb Wetherbee, New England Hotel. Water Street,” was the address,
and after considerable inquiry he found the street in question.
It was, however, the Battery end of it and no one seemed to know
anything about the New England Hotel. Still, Don was not dismayed and
pursued his way, keeping his eyes open and himself alert among the many
new sights and sounds of the metropolis.
The locality grew worse as he pursued his way, but he was not to be
frightened off by gangs of street gamins, or crowds of half drunken
men. Still, in these days, Water Street isn’t as bad as it was once--at
least, not by daylight.
As he wandered along he could see down the cross streets to the wharves
and water beyond, where all sorts and conditions of seagoing craft were
gathered from all parts of the world. He sniffed the sea breeze, too,
which, to him, killed all the odor of the filth about him.
“That’s what I want to be--a sailor,” he muttered.
Just then something caught his eye and he stopped motionless on the
sidewalk.
On the opposite side of the street (the river side) as though crowded
off Front Street by its more pretentious neighbors, was the office of a
shipping firm. It was in a low brick building, dingy and dirty as were
the structures about it, and a much battered sign over the door read:
ADONIRAM PEPPER & CO.,
SHIPPING MERCHANTS.
The name was what attracted Brandon’s attention first. He had heard his
father speak of it and of the man who was “Adoniram Pepper & Co.,” and
from his description he had a desire to see this eccentric personage.
Perhaps, also, Mr. Pepper would know the locality of the New England
Hotel, and therefore Brandon crossed the street and entered the dingy
little front office.
On a high stool by a high desk just beside the window, sat a man with
a wonderful development of leg, a terrific shock of the reddest hair
imaginable, and a shrewd, lean face, lit up by sharp, foxy eyes.
His face was smoothly shaven and the yellow skin was covered with
innumerable wrinkles like cracks in the cheeks of a wax doll; but
whether this individual was twenty-five, or fifty-five, Brandon was
unable to guess.
The man (a clerk, presumably) looked up with a snarl at Brandon’s
appearance.
“Well, what do _you_ want?” he demanded.
“Is the firm in?” asked Don, almost laughing in the other’s face, for
the red haired clerk had a huge daub of ink on the bridge of his nose
and another on his shirt front.
“_I’m_ the firm just now,” declared the man, glowering at him as though
he was a South Sea Islander with cannibalistic tendencies.
“Oh, you are, eh?” returned Brandon. “Well, I want to see Mr. Pepper.”
“You do, eh?” The clerk eyed him with still greater disfavor. “You do,
eh? Well you can’t see Mr. Pepper.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for one reason he isn’t here--he ain’t down yet--he’s gone
away--he’s _dead_!”
He slammed down his pen and jumped off the high stool.
“Git out o’ here you little rapscallion!” he roared, evidently
expecting Brandon to be frightened by his vehemence. “We don’t allow no
loafing ’round this office. Git, I say, or----”
At that instant the street door behind the amused Brandon was opened,
and with one glance at the newcomer the clerk’s jaws shut together like
a trap, he turned about and bounded to his seat on the stool with great
ability, and seizing his pen went to work on his books with monstrous
energy.
Brandon turned about also, surprised at these proceedings, and found
a short, pudgy looking little man standing in the doorway of the
office, gazing at the clerk with a broad smile on his red face; but
upon looking closer the boy discovered that, although the mouth was
smiling, the gentleman’s eyes were very stern indeed behind the gold
rimmed eye glasses.
“What is the meaning of this unseemly conduct, Weeks?” he asked in a
tone of displeasure.
“I--I was just showin’ this--this young friend of mine how--how a
feller up to the Bow’ry acted t’other night,” murmured the clerk, a
sort of ghastly red color mounting into his withered face beneath the
parchment-like skin.
“The Bowery?” repeated the gentleman, severely, and Brandon decided
that this was no other than Mr. Adoniram Pepper himself.
“Yes, sir; Bowery Theater, you know,” responded the clerk glibly,
with an imploring side glance at Brandon. “’Twas in the play, ‘The
Buccaneer’s Bride,’ you know.”
“No, I _don’t_ know,” replied Mr. Pepper, in disgust. “So this is your
friend, is it?” and he turned his gaze upon Brandon genially.
“Our friendship is of rather short duration,” said Don, smiling.
“So I presume,” returned Mr. Pepper. “Did you wish to see me?”
“Just a moment, sir.”
“I’ll give you two moments if you like.” Then he turned again to
the clerk and shook one fat finger at him. “One of these days I’ll
discharge you, Weeks,” he said sternly.
“I expect so,” groaned the clerk. “And then what’ll I do?”
Mr. Pepper looked at him a moment silently.
“Then you’ll go and lie somewhere else, I suppose. You _will_ lie,
Alfred Weeks, and I suppose I might as well keep you here and let you
lie to me, as to turn you loose upon your fellow men. Well, well! Now,
young man;” he turned with a sigh from the clerk and again looked at
Brandon.
“I suppose you are Mr. Pepper?” began Brandon.
“I--sup--pose--I--am,” replied the gentleman, with great care,
scrutinizing the face of the captain’s son with marked interest.
“Let’s see, what is your name?” he said: “or, no, you needn’t tell me.
I know it already. Your name is Tarr, and you are Captain Horace Tarr’s
son!”
“Yes, sir, I am,” Brandon replied in surprise.
“I knew it, I knew it!” declared Mr. Pepper, shaking both the boy’s
hands so violently that the eye glasses, which had a hard enough time
generally in staying on the little man’s nose, tumbled off, and were
only caught and saved from destruction by great agility on Mr. Pepper’s
part.
“My dear boy! I’d have known you if I’d met you in Timbuctoo!” he
declared. “Come into my office and tell me all about yourself. I’ve
been thinking about you ever since--er--your poor father’s death. I’ve
got something to tell you, too.”
He led Brandon toward the inner door, marked “Private,” and opening it,
disclosed a comfortably furnished room with a fire in the grate, and a
general air of cheerfulness about it.
“Come right in,” he repeated, and then shut the door behind his visitor.
But no sooner was the door closed than the acrobatic clerk was off his
stool, and had his ear fitted to the keyhole with a celerity which
denoted much practice in the art of eavesdropping.