Jack And The Check Book Part 15

The young lady has fainted."

The good woman needed no second bidding. She hastened to his side, and the limp form of the young girl was carried in her strong, motherly arms into the little back room behind the tailor shop, which formed their only home. Shortly afterward the old gentleman came also, ushered in by Aladdin.

"She is safe?" cried he, with an anxious glance at the prostrate form of his daughter.

"Perfectly so, sir," replied Aladdin's mother. "She has only fainted.

Won't you sit down, sir?" she added. "You look a little shaken up yourself."

"Thank you," said the old gentleman, gazing around the room vainly in search of a chair. "Ah--what shall I sit down on, madam?"

"Try the stove, sir," laughed Aladdin. "It may warm it up a bit."

The old man gazed frowningly at the boy, not relis.h.i.+ng such levity at so serious a moment, and Aladdin, slightly embarra.s.sed by his own frivolity, tried to cover his confusion by seizing the lamp that had fallen from the package, and polis.h.i.+ng its highly oxidized surface by rubbing it on the patched knee of his trousers. And then a strange thing came to pa.s.s. At the moment of the first attrition between his knee and the little bra.s.s lamp the room seemed to fill with a gray mist and in its gathering depths Aladdin perceived the huge figure of a blackamoor gradually taking shape.

"What the d.i.c.kens!" muttered the lad to himself as the strange apparition rose up before him, rubbing his eyes to make sure that he saw clearly. "What do you want?" he added, springing to his feet as the genie approached him.

"I have come in response to your summons," replied the blackamoor. "Give your orders, sir!"

Aladdin grinned broadly at this. The idea of his ever giving orders to anybody seemed so very absurd. Nevertheless, he fell in with the spirit of the hour.

"All right, Sambo," he returned. "Get this gentleman a chair. There may be an extra one up-stairs in the music-room."

The blackamoor disappeared for an instant and shortly returned bringing with him the desired piece of furniture.

"Thank you," said the old gentleman, as he took his seat with an uneasy glance around him. The situation was not altogether without alarming features. As for Aladdin, you could have knocked him over with a palm-leaf fan, so astonished was he at this unusual development.

"I wish I'd asked for something to eat," he muttered to himself.

"So do I," observed the old gentleman. "I'd give five hundred dollars just now for a boiled egg."

"You ought to get one studded with diamonds at that price," laughed Aladdin, and then just for a joke he turned to the blackamoor. "Get this gentleman five hundred dollars' worth of boiled eggs, Sambo," he said.

"Hard or soft, sir?" asked the genie.

"Three minutes," said the old gentleman.

Sambo made a low salaam to Aladdin, and departing, he returned four minutes later followed by seven other blackamoors just like him, each carrying a large wicker hamper on his shoulders. These they deposited in various parts of the room, and, gravely opening them, disclosed to the astounded gaze of Aladdin and his unknown guest hundreds of eggs, steaming as though freshly taken from the pot.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THIS IS A HALF-PORTION, SIR," SAID SAMBO]

"This is a half-portion, sir," said Sambo, addressing Aladdin. "We will return with the remainder in a minute, sir."

"Just wait a second," said Aladdin, scratching his head in bewilderment at the sight of so many eggs obtained with such ease. "It may be that these will be enough for the time being. I'll ask the old chap. Excuse me, Mr.--er--Mr.--er, I didn't catch your name, sir."

"I am Major Bondifeller, president of the United Mints of North America," replied the old gentleman. "A person not to be trifled with, young man, as you probably know very well."

Aladdin gasped, as well he might. Here was old Rufus Bondifeller, reputed to be the richest man in the world, a guest in his mother's fast-failing little remnant of a tailor shop.

"Gud-glad to mum-meet you, sir," stammered Aladdin. "Do you think there's enough eggs here to satisfy your hunger? There appears to be two hundred and fifty dollars' worth here now, but if you wish the rest served immediately--"

"Great heavens, no!" roared Bondifeller. "When I said I'd give five hundred dollars for a boiled egg I was merely speaking figuratively. A rich man can't eat any more boiled eggs at a sitting than a poor man; fact is, half the time he can't eat as many without a bad attack of angina pectoris."

"All right," said Aladdin, resolved to carry off the extraordinary situation with an outward nonchalance, in spite of the inner turmoil that kept his brain whirling. "You needn't bother about the rest of those eggs now, Sambo. Major Bondifeller can get along on these."

The blackamoor and his companions disappeared even as they had come, apparently irrespective of doorways, and utterly regardless of walls.

They seemed merely to melt through whatever solid substances there might be between themselves and annihilation. As for Major Bondifeller, as he observed these strange developments, his face grew set and rigid. He eyed every movement of the blackamoors with uneasy attention until they had vanished from sight, and then his flas.h.i.+ng eye was riveted upon Aladdin. Finally he spoke, sharply and to the point.

"Well," he snapped, "how much?"

Aladdin started. The icy tone of the speaker's voice chilled him, and it was so peremptory that he felt for the moment as if he had been stung by the lash.

"How much what?" he said, finally, summoning up all his courage to face the apparently angry millionaire.

"Don't try to evade the point," retorted the Major, coldly. "Let's get through with the business as quickly as we can. It is plain as a pikestaff to anybody having half an eye that, taking advantage of our mishap, you have lured my daughter and myself in here for your own profit. No man keeps such a villainous-looking gang of n.i.g.g.e.rs on hand with an honest purpose. So what are your demands?"

Aladdin laughed in spite of his disturbed frame of mind at the Major's suspicions. It was such an absurd idea that he could be at the head of a badger-gang, and yet, after all, he could not deny a certain sort of reasonableness in the notion from Major Bondifeller's point of view.

Again taking the lamp casually in his hand, more as an outlet for his embarra.s.sment than for any other reason, he gave it a second rub and started to answer the Major's question, but, as before, the mist again appeared, and from its musty depths the blackamoor took shape and salaamed before him.

"Well, what is it now, Sambo?" demanded Aladdin, frowning at the intruder.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "YOU RUBBED THE LAMP, I BELIEVE?"]

"Your orders, sir," said the blackamoor. "You rubbed the lamp, I believe?"

Aladdin's heart leaped into his mouth. _He had rubbed the lamp twice, and twice had it brought him aid!_ Surely, there must be some magic about this.

"What if I did rub the lamp?" he queried, in a tremulous voice. "What's that got to do with you?"

"I and my comrades are slaves of the lamp, as your Highness very well knows," replied the blackamoor. "Whatever your commands, the United Order of Amalgamated Genii must obey."

"_Hooray!_" cried Aladdin, dancing a wild fandango about the room. "_Who wants the handsome waiter?_"

As the full import of his new-found treasure dawned upon his mind, the lad's ecstasy bade fair to surpa.s.s all bounds, but the chilling voice of Bondifeller served to calm his effervescing spirit.

"I want nothing but your proposition, so that I may get out of this den as speedily as possible," he was saying. "I am not a man to beat about the bush, and I realize that you have got me. What is it you demand?"

"First and foremost, civility," said Aladdin, boldly, a sense of his own power sweeping over him and giving him confidence. "I guess you'll find that harder to negotiate than a check for a considerable sum, Major Bondifeller, cash being a commoner commodity with you than civility.

Now, as a matter of fact, sir," the lad went on, "I had your daughter carried in here out of that raging blizzard so that my mother could give her the attention she needed. You I brought in also with no more knowledge of who you were, and with no more idea of financially profiting by your accident, than if you had been one of those unfortunate tramps out on the Bowery there. But now that you have put the idea in my mind that, perhaps, after all, n.o.body ever does anything unselfishly in this world, I will make certain demands of you. To begin with, you may pay me two hundred and fifty dollars for those eggs, and as a mere act of ordinary generosity, you may tip the handsome waiter fifty dollars. I understand, too, sir, that you are the proprietor of these ten city blocks in which I and about twenty thousand of my neighbors are housed?"

"I believe I do own considerable property hereabouts," said the millionaire, sullenly, "though I can't say offhand whether I do or not.

My agents look after my smaller investments."

"Well," said Aladdin, "it don't make any difference to me whether you remember what you own or not. The results so far as you are concerned will be the same. You will have these ten blocks of houses torn down and replaced by model tenements, turning the alternate blocks into city parks for the children to play in."

"But suppose I don't own 'em?" protested Bondifeller.

"What you don't own, Major Bondifeller," returned Aladdin, "is too trifling a detail for us to worry over. So long as you don't own me I don't care a pickled herring what you do own. If it turns out upon investigation that any of these pig-pens on these ten city squares belong to anybody else, buy 'em."

"Buy 'em?" snarled Bondifeller. "How can I buy 'em if the other man won't sell?"