BEN OVERHEARS AN IMPORTANT CONVERSATION.
Two days later found Ben a passenger bound for Boston on one of the
palatial steamers of the Fall River line.
He looked about him to see if among the eight hundred passengers he
could recognize any one. He walked through the brilliant saloon and out
upon the open deck in the rear. There were but few passengers outside,
as the air was fresh and chill. Ben looked about him carelessly, when
his gaze was suddenly arrested by one face.
It was not an attractive face, but quite the reverse. There was a sly
and cunning expression, and a mean, treacherous look about the eyes
that naturally excited distrust. All this would not have attracted
Ben’s notice, who had seen many ill-looking faces in his wanderings,
but there was something familiar in the general appearance of the
man, some resemblance to a face that he had known. He could not tell
immediately whom the man resembled, but it came to him after a while.
The man before him, though probably twenty-five years younger, bore a
strong resemblance to his stepfather, Jacob Winter.
Then the thought occurred to him: “This must be the Ezra Winter who has
lured Mr. Winter into mining speculations. If it is, he looks just like
a man who would have no scruple in swindling him.”
Ben next examined the man who was sitting beside the supposed Ezra
Winter.
He was a man of the same type, evidently--a man with a low forehead
and small ferret-like eyes. The two seemed to be engaged in a deeply
interesting and earnest conversation. Ben was curious to learn what
they were talking about, and did not scruple to sit down as near them
as possible, in the hope of learning.
“Yes,” said the first man, who was really Ezra Winter, “I have made a
pretty good thing out of the Muddy Gulch Mining Company. I got in at
bottom figures, and have sold a large number of shares at ten times
what I gave for them.”
“Is the stock worth anything, Ezra?”
“Precious little. It looks well--on paper. I have an old uncle up
in the country--in Wrayburn, New Hampshire, who is in to the extent
of three thousand dollars. The old man is tight as a file, but I
humbugged him into thinking I was going to double his money within a
year, and by degrees I drew him in.
“First he invested a thousand dollars after a hundred questions. That
was about a year ago. I’ll tell you how I managed to get him in deeper.
At the end of three months I invented a ten per cent. dividend, paying
it all out of my own pocket. It paid, for he almost immediately put in
two thousand dollars more. _There haven’t been any dividends since!_”
“Isn’t he uneasy?”
“I should say so. I get a letter about every week, asking how soon
there is going to be another dividend. A short time since the old man
came to Boston to make me a visit. It was the first time he had been
there since he was thirty years old. I was dismayed when I saw him
coming, but I pulled myself together and gave him exclusive news of a
rich find of ore that would carry up the price to twice what he paid
for it.
“I don’t know whether I quite deceived him or not. He wanted me to sell
out half his stock, but I told him it would be at a great sacrifice.
In fact he couldn’t get more than fifty cents a share, but I didn’t
tell him that. He suggested asking some other broker about it, but that
would never do. I told him I would keep him apprised of the advance
in the stock, and would write him every week. So every week I have
written him an encouraging letter, but I am afraid every day of seeing
the rusty old man enter the office.”
[Illustration: Ben was curious to know what these two men were talking
about, so he sat down as near as possible, in the hope of learning
something.--Page 295. _Ben Bruce._]
“Is he the only customer who gives you trouble?”
“Not by any manner of means. To tell the truth, Barlow, Boston is
getting too hot to hold me. I have made a pretty good trip to New York,
and now I am prepared to carry out an old plan of mine.”
“How is that?”
“In the first place I have been out to Nyack to interview a young
man of more money than brains, and I have in my pocket a check for
twenty-five hundred dollars received in return for stock.”
“Good! You’re a sharp one, Ezra. Is it the same old stock?”
“Yes, but the certificates are very handsome. I have ordered some new
ones. They look fine, as I have already told you. Well, now, I have got
together about six thousand dollars, and I shall take the next steamer
for Liverpool.”
“Leaving your victims in the lurch?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“Ezra, Ezra! I am afraid you are a trifle unprincipled,” said his
friend in gay remonstrance.
“A man must look out for himself in this world, Barlow.”
“That’s so. You were born smart. I am afraid I wasn’t. Don’t you want a
private secretary?”
“I may some time,” answered Ezra quite seriously. “If I do, I will
think of you, Barlow.”
“How long shall you stay abroad?”
“Till this affair blows over. I may be able to do something over there.
Six thousand dollars won’t last me forever.”
It may be imagined with what interest Ben listened to this
conversation. It revealed to him the manner in which his stepfather had
been fleeced. Skinflint as he was, it was his love for money that had
made him a ready victim to Ezra and his wiles.
Though he had no love for Jacob Winter, he felt that Ezra was far more
contemptible, and it made his blood boil to think of the cold-blooded
way in which he had swindled those who had trusted to his plausible
recommendations of the fraudulent mine which appeared to have no
intrinsic value.
The two speakers had paid no especial attention to the boy who sat near
them gazing with apparent absorption into the waters of the Sound.
At length Barlow noticed him and he breathed a word of caution to Ezra.
Ezra looked round, but he did not seem alarmed.
“Bah!” he said, “it’s only a kid.”
“‘Little pitchers have large ears,’” suggested Barlow.
“Even if he has heard anything, he hasn’t understood it.”
“I dare say you are right. A boy of his age isn’t likely to know much
about business.”
“It’s getting a little chilly. Let us go inside.”
“Very well!” and the two entered the main saloon and sat down to listen
to the fine music discoursed by the band.
“What ought I to do?” Ben asked himself, when he was left alone. “I
don’t care much for Jacob Winter, but I don’t like to see him swindled
in such a barefaced manner. If there is any way in which I can balk the
scheme I will.”