The Debtor Part 55

"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 pa.s.sing 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 b.a.l.l.s 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 Sat.u.r.day," 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 s.h.i.+ndy 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.

Chapter XXVII

Arthur Carroll, when he had started on his drive with his wife and sister that afternoon, was in one of those strenuous moods which seem to make one's whole being tick with the clock-work of destiny and cause everything else, all the environment, and the minor happenings of life, to appear utterly idle. Even when he talked, and apparently with earnestness, it was always with that realization of depths, which made his own voice ring empty and strange in his ears. He heard his wife and sister chatter with the sense of aloofness of the inhabitant of another planet; he thought even of the financial difficulties which hara.s.sed him, and had caused this very mood, with that same sense of aloofness. When Anna wondered where Charlotte had gone to walk, and Mrs. Carroll remarked on the possibility of their overtaking her, his mind made an actual effort to grasp that simple idea. He was running so deep, and with such awful swiftness, in his own groove of personal tragedy, that the daughter whom he loved, and had seen only a few moments ago, seemed almost left out of sight of his memory. However, all the while the usual trivialities of his life and the lives of those who belonged to him went on with the same regularity and reality as tragedy, and with as certain a trend to a catastrophe of joy or misery.

On that day when Charlotte had her fright from the tramp, she remained at the Anderson's to supper. Eddy had also remained. When Charlotte had waked from her nap, he followed Anderson into the sitting-room, where was Charlotte in Mrs. Anderson's voluminous, white frilly wrapper, a slight young figure scalloped about by soft, white draperies, like a white flower, seated comfortably in the largest, easiest chair in the room. Mrs. Anderson was standing over her with another gla.s.s of wine, and a china plate containing two great squares of sponge-cake.

"Do eat this and drink the wine, dear," she urged. "It is nearly an hour before supper now."

"Then I really must go home, if it is so late," Charlotte cried. She made a weak effort to rise. She was still curiously faint when she essayed to move.

"You are going to stay here and have supper, and after supper my son shall take you home. If you are not able to walk, we shall have a carriage."

"I think I must go home, thank you," Charlotte repeated, in a sort of bewildered and grateful dismay.

"If you think your mother will feel anxious, I will send and inform her where you are," said Mrs. Anderson, "but you must stay, my dear."

There was about her a soft, but incontrovertible authority. It was all gentleness, like the overlap of feathers, but it was compelling.

It was while Mrs. Anderson was insisting and the girl protesting that Anderson, with Eddy at his heels, had entered the room.

"Why, Eddy dear, is that you?" cried Charlotte.

Eddy stood before her and surveyed her with commiseration and a strong sense of personal grievance and reproach. "Yes, it's me," said he. "Papa told me to go to walk with you, and I didn't know which way you went, and I couldn't find out for a long time. Then I saw Mr.

Anderson taking you here, and I ran, but I couldn't catch up. He's got awful long legs." Eddy looked accusingly at Anderson's legs.

"It was too bad," said Charlotte.

"You were awful silly to get so scared at nothing," Eddy pursued. "I saw that tramp. He looked to me like a real nice man. Girls are always imagining things. You'd better eat that cake, Charlotte. You look awful. That looks like real nice cake."

"Bless your heart, you shall have some," Mrs. Anderson said, and Eddy accepted with alacrity the golden block of cake which was offered him.

"Why, Eddy!" Charlotte said.

"Now, Charlotte, you know we never have cake like this at home," Eddy said, biting into the cake. "Not since the egg-man won't trust us any more. I know this kind of cake takes lots of eggs. I heard Marie say so when Amy asked her to make it."

Charlotte colored pitifully, and made another effort to rise.

"Indeed, I think we must go now," said she. "Come, Eddy."

Mrs. Anderson turned to her son for support. "I tell her she must not think of going until after tea," she said. "Then if she is not able to walk, we will get a carriage."