第69章
"You may thank me for that, Captain," said the young man. "When Itold Mrs. Ruggles who and what you were she almost broke down and sobbed. The fact that she had risked offending one so closely connected with the real thing on Fifth Avenue and Wall Street was too dreadful. But she's yours devotedly now. There's an 18-karat crown on your head.""Yup. I suppose so. Well, I ain't so sot up with pride over wearin' that crown. It used to belong to 'Bije, and I never did care much for second-hand things. Rather have a new sou'wester of my own, any day in the week. When I buy a sou'wester I know what it's made of.""Mrs. Ruggles knows what the crown is made of--gold, nicely padded with bonds and preferred stock.""Humph! Sometimes I wonder if the paddin's waterproof. As for the gold--well, you can make consider'ble shine with brass when you're dealin' with nigh-sighted folks . . . and children."To this indirect reference to Miss Warren and her brother Pearson made no reply. The pair conversed freely on other subjects, but each avoided this one. The novel, too, was laid on the shelf for the present. Its author had not yet mustered sufficient courage to return to it. Captain Elisha once or twice suggested a session with "Cap'n Jim," but, finding his suggestions received with more or less indifference, did not press them. His mind was busy with other things. A hint dropped by Sylvester, the lawyer, was one of these. It suggested alarming possibilities, and his skepticism concerning the intrinsic worth of his inherited "crown" was increased by it.
He paid frequent visits to the offices of Sylvester, Kuhn, and Graves in Pine Street. Upon the senior partner, whom he esteemed and trusted not only as a business adviser but a friend, he depended for information concerning happenings at the Warren apartment.
Caroline sent him regular statements of her weekly expenditures, also bills for his approval, but she had written him but once, and then only a brief note. The note brought by a messenger, accompanied a package containing the chain which he and Pearson selected with such deliberation and care at the Fifth Avenue jeweler's. Under the existing circumstances, the girl wrote, she felt that she did not wish to accept presents from him and therefore returned this one. He was alone when the note and package came and sat by the window of his room, looking out at the dismal prospect of back yards and clothes-lines, turning the leather case over and over in his hands. Perhaps this was the most miserable afternoon he had spent since his arrival in the city. He tried to comfort himself by the exercise of his usual philosophy, but it was cold comfort. He had no right to expect gratitude, so he told himself, and the girl undoubtedly felt that she was justified in her treatment of him; but it is hard to be misunderstood and misjudged, even by one whose youth is, perhaps, an excuse. He forgave Caroline, but he could not forgive those who were responsible for her action.
After Pearson had departed, on the morning when the conversation dealing with Mrs. Van Winkle Ruggles and her change of attitude took place, Captain Elisha put on his hat and coat and started for his lawyer's office. Sylvester was glad to see him and invited him to lunch.
"No, thank you," replied the captain. "I just run down to ask if there was anything new in the offin'. Last time I see you, you hinted you and your mates had sighted somethin' or other through the fog, and it might turn out to be a rock or a lighthouse, you couldn't tell which. Made up your mind yet?"Sylvester shook his head. "No," he said, slowly; "it is still foggy. We're busy investigating, but we're not ready to report.""Humph! Well, what's the thing look like? You must be a little nigher to it by now."The lawyer tapped his desk with a pencil. "I don't know what it looks like," he answered. "That is to say, I don't--I can't believe it is what it appears, at this distance, to be. If it is, it is the most--"He paused. Captain Elisha waited for him to go on and, when he did not do so, asked another question.
"The most what?" he demanded. "Is it likely to be very bad?""Why--why--well, I can't say even that yet. But there! as I told you, I'm not going to permit it to worry me. And you mustn't worry, either. That's why I don't give you any further particulars.
There may be nothing in it, after all."
His visitor smiled. "Say, Mr. Sylvester," he said, "you're like the young-ones used to be when I was a boy. There'd be a gang of 'em waitin' by the schoolhouse steps and when the particular victim hove in sight they'd hail him with, 'Ah, ha! YOU'RE goin' to get it!' 'Wait till teacher sees you!' and so on. Course the victim would want to know what it meant. All the satisfaction he got from them was, 'That's all right! You'll find out! You just wait!'
And the poor feller put in the time afore the bell rung goin' over all the things he shouldn't have done and had, and wonderin' which it was this time. You hinted to me a week ago that there was a surprisin' possibility loomin' up in 'Bije's financial affairs.
And ever since then I've been puzzlin' my brains tryin' to guess what could happen. Ain't discovered any more of those Cut Short bonds, have you?"The bonds to which he referred were those of a defunct Short Line railroad. A large number of these bonds had been discovered among A. Rodgers Warren's effects; part of his "tangled assets," the captain had termed them, differentiating from the "tangible"variety.
"Abbie, my housekeeper, has been writin' me," he went on, "about havin' the sewin' room papered. She wants my advice concernin' the style of paper; says it ought to be pretty and out of the common, but not too expensive. I judge what she wants is somethin' that looks like money but ain't really wuth more than ten cents a mile.
I've been thinkin' I'd send her a bale or so of those bonds; they'd fill the bill in those respects, wouldn't they?"Sylvester laughed. "They certainly would, Captain," he replied.