Chapter 26

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_ Chapter XXVI

There had been a mutter as of coming storm in Wall Street for several weeks, and this had culminated in a small, and probably a sham, tempest, with more stage thunder and lightning than any real. However, it was on that very account just the sort of cataclysm to overwhelm phantom and illusory ships of fortune like Arthur Carrolls. That week he acknowledged to himself that his career in the City was over, that it was high time for him to shut up his office and to shake the dust of the City from his feet, for fear of worse to come. Arthur Carroll had a certain method in madness, a certain caution in the midst of recklessness, and he had also a considerable knowledge of law, and had essayed to keep within it. However, there were complications and quibbles, and nobody knew what might happen, so he retreated in as good order as possible, and even essayed to guard as well as might be his retreat. He told the pretty stenographers, with more urbanity than usual, and even smiling at the prettier one, as if the fact of her roselike face did not altogether escape him, that he was feeling the need of a vacation and would close the office for a couple of weeks. At the end of that period they might report. Carroll owed both of these girls; both remembered that fact; both reflected on the possibility of their services being no longer required, but such was the unconscious masculine charm of the man over their foolish and irresponsible feminity that they questioned nothing. Their eyes regarded him half-shyly, half-boldly under their crests of blond pompadours. The younger and prettier blushed sweetly, and laughed consciously, as if she saw herself in a mirror; the other's face deepened like a word under a strenuous pencil--the lines in it grew accentuated. Going down-stairs, the pretty girl nudged the other almost painfully in the side.

"Say," she whispered, "did you see him stare at me. Eh?"

The other girl drew away angrily. "I don't know as I did," she replied, in a curt tone.

"He stared like everything. Say, I don't believe he's married."

"I don't see what difference it makes to you whether he's married or not."

"Sho! Guess I wouldn't be seen goin' with a married man. What do you take me for, Sadie Smith?"

"Wait till there's any question of goin' before you worry. I would."

"Maybe I sha'n't have to wait long," giggled the other. When she reached the sidewalk, she stood balancing herself airily, swinging her arms, keeping up a continuous flutter of motion like a bird, to keep warm, for the wind blew cold down Broadway. She was really radiant, vibrant with nerves and young blood, sparkling and dimpling, and bubbling over, as it were, with perfect satisfaction with herself and perfect assurance of what lay before her. The other stood rather soberly beside her. They were both waiting for a car up Broadway. The young man who was in love with the pretty one came clattering down the stairs. There had been something wrong with the elevator, and it was being repaired. He also had to wait for a car, and he joined the girls. He approached the pretty girl and timidly pressed his shoulder against hers in its trim, light jacket. She drew away from him with a sharp thrust of the elbow.

"Go 'long," said she, forcibly. She laughed, but she was evidently in earnest.

The young man was not much abashed. He stood regarding her, winking fast.

"Say," he said, with a cautious glance around at the staircase, "s'pose the boss is goin' to quit?"

Both girls turned and stared at him. The elder turned quite pale.

"What do you mean, talking so?" said she, sharply.

"Nothin', only I thought it was a kind of queer time of year for a man to take a vacation, a man as busy as the boss seems to be. And--it kind of entered my head--"

"If anything entered your head, do, for goodness' sake, hang on to it," said the pretty girl, pertly. Then her car whirred over the crossing and ground to a standstill, and she sprang on it with a laugh at her own wit. "Good-night," she called back.

The other two, waiting for another car, were left together. "You don't think Mr. Carroll means to give up business?" the girl said, in a guarded tone.

"Lord, no! Why, he has so much business he can hardly stagger under it, and he must be making money. I was only joking."

"I suppose he's good pay," the girl said, in a shamed tone.

"Good pay? Of course he is. He don't keep right up to the mark--none of these lordly rich men like him do--but he's sure as Vanderbilt. I should smile if he wasn't."

"I thought so," said the girl. "I didn't mean to say I had any doubt."

"He's sure, only he's a big swell. That's always the way with these big swells. If he hadn't been such a swell, now, he'd have paid us all off before he took his vacation. But, bless you, money means so little to a chap like him that it don't enter into his head it can mean any more to anybody else."

"It must be awful nice to have money enough so you can feel that way," remarked the girl, with a curious sigh.

"That's so." The young man craned his neck forward to look at an approaching car, then he turned again to the girl. "Say," he whispered, pressing close to her in the hurrying throng, and speaking in her ear, "she's dead stuck on him, ain't she?" By two jerks, one of his right shoulder, one of his left, with corresponding jerks of his head, up the stairs and up Broadway, he indicated his employer and the girl who had just left on the car.

"She's a fool," replied the girl, comprehensively.

"Think she 'ain't got no show?"

The girl sniffed.

The young man laughed happily. "Well," he said, "I rather think he's married, myself, anyhow."

"I don't think he's married," returned the girl, quickly.

"I do. There's our car. Come along."

The girl climbed after the young man on to the crowded platform of the car. She glanced back at the office window as the car rumbled heavily up Broadway, and it was a pathetic glance from a rather pathetic young face with a steady outlook upon a life of toil and petty needs.

William Allbright had lingered behind the rest, and was in the office talking with Carroll, who was owing him a month's salary. Allbright, respectfully and apologetically, but with a considerable degree of firmness, had asked for it.

"It is not quite convenient for me to pay you to-night, Mr. Allbright," Carroll replied, courteously. "I was expecting a considerable sum to-day, which would have enabled me to square off a number of other debts beside yours. You know that matter of Gates & Ormsbee?"

"Yes, sir," replied Allbright, rather evasively. He had curious misgivings lately about this very Gates & Ormsbee, who figured in considerable transactions on his books.

"Well," continued Carroll, rather impatiently, looking at his watch, "you know they failed to meet their note this morning, and that has shortened me with ready money."

"How long do you expect to keep the office shut, sir?" inquired the clerk, respectfully, but still with a troubled air, and with serious eyes with the unswerving intentness of a child's upon Carroll's face.

"About two weeks," answered Carroll. "I must have that much rest. I am overworked." It was, indeed, true that Carroll looked fagged and fairly ill.

"And then you expect to resume business?" questioned Allbright, with a mild persistence. He still kept those keen, childlike eyes of his upon the other man's face.

"What else would you understand from what I have already said?" said Carroll. He essayed to meet the other man's eyes, then he turned and looked out of the window, and at that minute the girl who had worked at the type-writer in the back office looked up at him from the crowded platform of the car with her small, intense face, whose intensity seemed to make it stand out from the others around her as from a blurred background of humanity. "May I ask you to kindly wait a moment, Mr. Allbright?" Carroll said, and went out hurriedly, leaving Allbright standing staring in amazement. There had been something in his employer's manner which he did not understand. He stood a second, then presently made free to take up a copy of the Wall Street edition of the Sun, and sit down to glance over the panic reports. It was not very long, however, before he heard Carroll approaching the door. Carroll entered quite naturally, and the unusual expression which had perplexed the clerk was gone from his face. His mind seemed to be principally disturbed by the trouble about the elevator.

"It is an outrage," he said, in his fine voice, which was courteous even while pronouncing anathema. "The management of this block is not what it should be."

Allbright had risen, and was standing beside the desk on which lay the Sun. "It hasn't been acting right for a week past," he said, referring to the elevator.

"I know it hasn't, and there might have been an accident. It is an outrage. And they are taking twice as long to repair it as they should. I doubt if it is in working order by to-morrow." As he spoke, Carroll was taking out his pocket-book, which he opened, disclosing neatly folded bank-notes. "By-the-way, Mr. Allbright," he said, "I find I can settle my arrears with you to-night, after all. I happened to think of a party from whom I might procure a certain sum which was due me, and I did so."

Allbright's face brightened. "I am very glad, sir," he said. "I was afraid of getting behind with the rent, and my sister has not been very well lately, and there is the doctor's bill."

"I am very glad also," said Carroll. "I dislike exceedingly to allow these things to remain unpaid." As he spoke he was counting out the amount of Allbright's month's salary. He then closed the pocket-book with a deft motion, but not before the clerk had seen that it was nearly empty. He also saw something else before Carroll brought his light overcoat together over his chest. "It is really cold to-night," he said.

"I am very much obliged to you, sir, for the money," Allbright said, putting the notes in his old pocket-book. Then he replied to Carroll's remark concerning the weather, that it was indeed cold, and he thought there would be a frost.

"Yes, I think so," said Carroll.

Then Allbright put on his own rather shabby, dark overcoat and his hat and took his leave. Much to his surprise, Carroll extended his hand, something which he had never done before.

"Good-bye," he said.

Allbright shook the extended hand, and felt a sudden, unexplained emotion. He returned the good-bye, and wished Mr. Carroll a pleasant vacation and restoration to health.

"I am tired out and ill," Carroll admitted, in a weary voice, and his eyes, as they now met the other man's, were haggard.

"There's two weeks' vacation," Allbright told his sister when he reached home that night, "and I don't know, but I'm afraid business ain't going just to suit Captain Carroll, and that's the reason for it."

"Has he paid you?" asked his sister, quickly, and her placid forehead wrinkled. Her illness had made her irritable.

"Yes," replied her brother. He looked at her meditatively. He was about to tell her something--that he was almost sure that Carroll had gone out and pawned his watch to pay him--then he desisted. He reflected that his sister was a woman, and would in all probability tell the woman down-stairs and her son about it, and that it would be none of their business whether he worked for a man who was honest enough, or hard up enough, to pawn his watch to pay him his month's salary or not. He was conscious of sentiments of loyalty both to himself and to Carroll. During the next two weeks he often strolled in the neighborhood of the office and stood looking up at the familiar windows. One day he saw some men carrying away a desk which looked familiar, but he was not sure. He hesitated about asking them from what office they had removed it until they had driven away and it was too late. He went up on the elevator and surveyed the office door, but it looked just as usual, with the old sign thereon. He tried it softly, but it was locked.

When he reached the sidewalk he encountered Harrison Day, the young clerk. He did not see him at first, but a nervous touch on his arm arrested his attention, and then he saw the young man's face with its fast-winking eyes.

"Say," said Harrison Day, "it's all right, ain't it?"

"What's all right?" demanded Allbright, a trifle shortly, drawing away. He had never liked Harrison Day.

"Oh, nothin', only it's ten days since he went, and I thought I'd look round to see how things were lookin'. You s'pose he's comin' back all right?"

"I haven't any reason to think anything else."

"Well, I thought I'd look around, and when I saw you I thought I'd ask what you thought. The girls are kind of uneasy--that is, Sadie is--May don't seem to fret much. Say!"

"What?"

"Did he pay you?"

"Yes, he did."

"Ain't he owin' you anything?"

"No, he is not."

The young man gave a whistle of relief. "Well, I s'pose he's all right," he said. "He 'ain't paid the rest of us up yet, but I s'pose it's safe enough."

A faithful, even an affectionate look came into the other man's face. He remembered his suspicions about the watch, and reasoned from premises. "I have no more doubt of him than I have of myself," he replied.

"You s'pose the business is goin' on just the same, then?"

"Of course I do," Allbright replied, almost angrily. And then a man who had just emerged from the street door coming from the elevator accosted him.

"Can you tell me anything about a man by the name of Carroll that's been running a sort of promoting business up in No. 233," he asked, and his face looked reddened unnaturally. The young man thought he had probably been drinking, but Allbright thought he looked angry. The young man replied before Allbright opened his mouth.

"He's gone on a vacation," he said.

"Queer time of year for a vacation," snapped the man, who was long and lean and full of nervous vibrations.

"He was overworked," said Harrison Day.

"Guess he overworked cheating me out of two thousand odd dollars," said the man, and both the others turned and stared at him.

Then Allbright spoke. "That is a statement no man has any right to make about my employer unless he is in a position to prove it," he said.

"That is so," said Harrison Day. He was a very small man, but he danced before the tall, lean one, who looked as if all his flesh might have resolved to muscle.

The man looked contemptuously down at him and spoke to Allbright. "So he is your employer?" he said, in a sarcastic tone.

"Yes, he is."

"This young man's also, I presume."

"Yes, he is," declared Day. But the man only heeded Allbright's response that he was.

"Well," said the man, "may I ask a question?"

"Yes, you may," said Day, pertly, "but it don't follow that we are goin' to answer it."

"May I ask," said the man, addressing Allbright, "if Captain Carroll has paid you your salaries?"

"He has paid me every dollar he owed me," replied Allbright, with emphasis, and his own face flushed.

Then the man turned to Day. "Has he paid you?" he inquired.

And Day, with no hesitation, lied. "Yes, sir, he has, every darned cent," he declared, "and I don't know what business it is of yours whether he has or not."

"When is he coming back?" asked the man, of Allbright, not heeding Day.

"Next Monday," replied Allbright, with confidence.

"Where does he live?" asked the man.

Then for the first time an expression of confusion came over the book-keeper's face, but Day arose to the occasion.

"He lives in Orange," replied Day.

"What street, and number?"

"One hundred and sixty-three Water Street," replied Day. His eyes flashed. He was finding an unwholesome exhilaration in this inspirational lying.

"Well," said the man, "I can tell you one thing, if your precious boss ain't in this office Monday morning by nine o'clock sharp, he'll see me at one hundred an sixty-three Water Street, Orange, New Jersey, and he'll hand over my two thousand odd dollars that he's swindled me out of, or I'll have the law on him." With that the man swung himself aboard a passing car, and Allbright and Day were left looking after him.

"That feller had ought to have been knocked down," said Day.

Allbright turned and looked at him gravely. "So, Captain Carroll lives in Orange?" he said.

"He may, for all I know."

"Then you don't know?"

"Do you?"

"No; I never have known exactly."

"Well, I haven't, but I wasn't goin' to let on to that chap. And he may live jest where I said he did, for all I know. Say!"

"What?"

"You s'pose it is all right?"

Allbright hesitated. His eyes fell on three gold balls suspended in the air over a door a little way down a cross street. "Yes," he said. "I believe that Captain Arthur Carroll will pay every man he owes every dollar he owes."

"Well, I guess it's all right," said Day. "I'm goin' to take the girls to Madison Square Garden to-night. I'm pretty short of cash, but you may as well live while you do live. I wonder if the boss is married."

"I don't know."

"I guess he is," said Day, "and I guess he's all right and above board. Good-bye, Allbright. See you Monday."

But Monday, when the two stenographers, the book-keeper, and the clerk met at the office, they found it still locked, and a sign "To let" upon the door.

"Mr. Carroll gave up his office last Saturday," said the man in the elevator. "The janitor said so, and they have taken his safe out for rent. Guess he bust in the Wall Street shindy last week."

Out on the sidewalk the four looked at one another. The pretty stenographer began to cry in a pocket-handkerchief edged with wide, cheap lace.

"I call it a shame," she said, "and here I am owing for board, and--"

"Don't cry, May," said Day, with a caressing gesture towards her in spite of the place. "I guess it will be all right. He has all our addresses, and we shall hear, and you won't have a mite of trouble getting another place."

"I think I am justified in telling you all not to worry in the least, that you will be paid every dollar," said Allbright; but he looked perplexed and troubled.

"It looks mighty black, his not sending us word he was going to close the office," said Day; and then appeared the tall, lean man who wanted his two thousand odd dollars. He did not notice them at all, but started to enter the office-building.

"Come along quick before he comes back," whispered Day. He seized the astonished girls each by an arm and hustled them up the street, and Allbright, after a second's hesitation, followed them just as the irate man emerged from the door. _

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