At the time of his father's death, Jimmy Burke was seventeen years of
age. He was a strong lad and tall for his age, fair of complexion, with
a direct look in the eyes and a resolute cast of chin that he had got
from "Swiftsure Burke."
He had had a hard life, even at that age; and a hard life will either
mould a boy or break his heart--more often the latter, unless he be made
of the right stuff. But Jimmy came of a fighting race. He soon learnt
to hold his own, being in more ways than one far better fitted to
succeed in the world than his less robust, unhappy father.
Left alone in a great city like New York, where there are as many rogues
as street-cars, and more "toughs" than police, he looked about him for
some suitable employment, resolved in spite of everything to earn an
honest living. Knowing that good fortune comes only to those that seek
it, he presented himself at the offices of Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern--the very firm, though he never knew it, that had brought
about the ruin of his father--and boldly asked to be taken on as a
clerk.
Rosencrantz questioned the boy as to his capacities, sounding him in
much the same way as a farmer might prod a fat sheep on a market day,
and very soon arrived at the conclusion that Jimmy Burke was the very
lad he wanted. He engaged him on the spot, as a kind of combined clerk
and office boy, and--what suited Rosencrantz most of all--at a
starvation salary, which at the time, however, seemed more than enough
to Jimmy.
And thereupon the boy entered upon a phase of his existence in which
there was little sunshine and much that would have made him miserable
and downcast had he been made of weaker stuff.
Rosencrantz was a bald, clean-shaven man, with a hooked nose, a sallow
face, and a domineering manner. It was his habit to browbeat his
employees; but it was no more possible to crush the spirit, or blot out
the personality of the grandson of "Swiftsure Burke" than it would be to
curb the cub of a tiger. The boy remained the same: straightforward,
frank and honest. He continued to do his work to the best of his
ability, taking his employer's hard words for what they were worth,
accepting them as part and parcel of his life, a sort of grim necessity.
As for Guildenstern, he seldom appeared at the office; and when he did
so, it was quite evident that he had little or no say in the business.
He was a small man, very short-sighted, whose gold-rimmed pince-nez
would never stay on his nose. He was always perfectly ready to agree to
whatever Rosencrantz said, and if he ever made a suggestion of his
own--which was seldom enough--he did so with many apologies, as if he
was well aware that he had no right to open his mouth.
Both these men were "hyphenated-Americans" of German descent. Neither,
however, had ever been to the Fatherland, nor was Rosencrantz able to
speak a single word of what should have been his native language. He
had been born in Chicago, and on that account it was his custom to refer
to himself as a "freeborn citizen of the great United States."
Whatever else he was, he was first a rascal, and secondly a man of
business. The sole object of his life was the making of money, in
regard to which he was handicapped by no qualms of conscience. Such
ambitions are bound to be debasing; and Herr Rosencrantz was quite
incapable of any finer feelings. He took not the least personal
interest in the orphan boy whom fate had thrown upon his hands. He
experienced no feelings of remorse for having brought John Burke to the
brink of ruin and the door of death. Jimmy was just a bright lad who
could be put to a good use, who was certainly worth four times the
salary he received.
In course of time, the boy so disliked and mistrusted his employer that
he had serious thoughts of looking for work elsewhere. One thing, and
one thing only, prevented him from doing so. His sole friend in these
days was a girl, a little older than himself, whose name was Peggy Wade.
Peggy was an orphan, too. Her parents had died when she was quite a
child, since when she had been brought up by an aunt who lived at
Hoboken--a true woman, who could give, without thought of recompense,
and without reluctance, that love and tender care to which the young
should be entitled. She was a mother, in all but name, to Peggy Wade;
and Peggy, in a girl's way, was a mother to Jimmy Burke.
She was employed by Rosencrantz as a shorthand-typist; and thus it was
that she and Jimmy, constituting the whole office staff, were thrown
much in each other's way, and before long they had become inseparable
friends. Often, when they were obliged to work long after business
hours, smuggling into the office various unwholesome edibles, such as
pork-pies, sardines and cakes, they would make cocoa on the stove and
revel in what they termed a "picnic."
They would spend their Saturdays together in Central Park, or else go
even so far afield as Coney Island, provided one or the other had
sufficient money to spend upon the roundabouts and swings. And in the
evenings they would return to Hoboken, where Peggy's aunt, with the
sweet smile of a loving woman, to whom the happiness of others is a
great reward, would listen in patient satisfaction to the whole tale of
their adventures. That was how things were during the winter and the
early spring of the year 1914--which is a date that will stand forth in
scarlet lettering in the History of the World.
It was during the month of April that Rosencrantz began to receive
visits from a certain distinguished-looking gentleman, whom Peggy
recognized at once by his portrait which had appeared more than once in
the New York papers. He was a certain Baron von Essling, a military
attache of the German Embassy in Washington, though never by any chance
did he think fit to give his name. He always asked for Rosencrantz, and
was admitted without delay, when the two men would remain closeted
together sometimes even for hours.
In more ways than one, there was an atmosphere of secrecy about these
interviews, which even Jimmy could not fail to observe. In the first
place, the Baron's visits invariably took place after dark, when most of
the business houses were closed. Rosencrantz, too, never failed to lock
his office door after the Baron had entered. He also became more fussy
than ever, and more impatient and nervous. He had just discovered that
Peggy and Jimmy were in the habit of entering his room after he had left
it, for the purpose of converting his office stove into a kitchen range.
This he strictly forbade. He admitted that it was necessary for both of
them to have access into the inner office, but cooking he would
certainly not permit. There can be small doubt that in his own boyhood
(if he had ever had one) the joys of a "picnic" had been quite unknown.
It was also about this time that he purchased a peculiar leather
box--which he called his "attache-case"--of which he himself possessed
the only key, and in which he kept certain documents which no one but
himself, and apparently the Baron von Essling, was ever permitted to
see.
Now, one of the man's peculiarities was that he liked to see his office
tidy, whereas he himself was one of the most slovenly people in the
world. And as Jimmy was not particularly methodical in such matters,
the result was that Peggy was the only one of the three who ever knew
where anything was. It was this, as it turned out, that brought about
something in the nature of a great calamity, as we shall see.
Von Essling, when he called, was sometimes accompanied by a short,
thick-set fellow, who went by the name of Rudolf Stork. Stork was a
strange-looking man, with an exceedingly wrinkled face, and a sinister
cast of countenance. Peggy, with the unfailing instinct of her sex,
mistrusted him from the start.
Stork was evidently a sailor, for he wore a pea-jacket, walked with a
rolling gait, and was eternally chewing tobacco, and expectorating with
a considerable degree of skill. If Rosencrantz was a scoundrel, Rudolf
Stork was something worse. There was that about him that suggested the
jail-bird, the man who knows what it means to wear a convict's clothes,
to be labelled with a number and pace a prison yard. One evening,
Rosencrantz left the office earlier than usual. There had been a sudden
bout of cold weather, when it had seemed that the spring was at hand. A
bitter wind was blowing through the New York streets, that picked up the
dust and drove it in eddies between the great, square-cut, towering
buildings. It was wholly characteristic of Rosencrantz that he grudged
his clerks a fire, though the stove in his own room had been burning all
that day. Peggy and Jimmy had been left at their desks with orders to
make up certain arrears of work. The boy sat before an opened ledger;
the girl was busy at her typewriter with a sheaf of shorthand notes at
her elbow.
Suddenly, she got to her feet, unrolled the last quarto, and placed the
cover over the machine.
"I've done," she said, looking across at Jimmy.
The boy, who was still poring over the ledger, ran his fingers through
his hair.
"I wish I had," he answered, in a tired voice. "If I can't balance
these accounts, I shall hear all about it to-morrow. Say, Peggy," he
continued, swinging round in his chair, "what do you say to a picnic?"
Peggy straightened, and shaped her lips as if about to whistle.
"Just fine!" she exclaimed. "But, Jimmy, dare we risk it?"
The boy's face altered; for a moment he looked quite serious.
"No," said he. "It's not good enough. I don't mind for myself, but I'm
not going to get you into a row."
Peggy laughed.
"Oh, I don't care," she answered.
"It's not allowed," said Jimmy.
"It wouldn't be half such fun if it was," observed Peggy, with a world
of truth. "Besides, he won't come back again to-night. He told me I
was to leave the most important letters till to-morrow morning."
Jimmy was on his feet in an instant; the ledger was slammed down upon a
shelf.
"Come on," he cried. "We'll have the feast of our lives."
Their cooking utensils consisted of a cheap kettle, a frying-pan, and a
few knives, forks and spoons. These Peggy had hidden in a large
cupboard in Rosencrantz's room, which was used as a receptacle for old
account books and ledgers and all kinds of rubbish, and where their
employer never by any chance happened to look. As they rescued these
priceless possessions from behind a collection of office brooms and
dust-pans, Jimmy noticed that the mysterious leather box--which
Rosencrantz called his "attache-case"--had been placed on the floor of
the cupboard.
The recognized preliminary to an office "picnic" was that they should
club their money. On this occasion Peggy produced two dollars fifty,
whereas Jimmy could contribute no more than seventy cents. When Peggy
had filled the kettle, it was arranged that Jimmy should remain in
charge, whilst the girl went out to purchase supplies which, it was
decided, should include sausages, in regard to the cooking of which
Peggy was an acknowledged expert.
Now, an escapade of this sort loses much of its zest when the bold
adventurer finds himself alone; and no sooner had Peggy set out upon her
errand than Jimmy became conscious of feeling a trifle nervous. Though
he was never willing to admit it to himself, he held Rosencrantz in
considerable dread; and he did not like to think what the result would
be should he and Peggy be caught. In consequence, for the first time in
his life, he was really alarmed when suddenly he heard the clashing
sound of the brass doors of the elevator, followed by footsteps in the
corridor.
Shuffling the knives and forks into his coat pocket, with the kettle in
one hand and the frying-pan in the other, he sprang to his feet and
stood for a moment irresolute, not knowing what to do. He could not go
back to the clerks' office, since there he would meet Rosencrantz, whose
voice was audible through the half-opened sliding door in the wall.
It did not take Jimmy long to come to the conclusion that, on such an
occasion as this, discretion is the better part of valour. Without a
moment's thought, he dashed into the cupboard; tripped over the leather
box, so that some of the half-boiling water was spilled from the spout
of the kettle, and then closed the door.
He did so only in the nick of time; for, a second later, Rosencrantz
himself entered the room, followed by the Baron von Essling and Rudolf
Stork.