After a Shadow and Other Stories Part 3

"What am I to do?" asked the troubled young man. "I am in debt to him."

"He will be here to-morrow."

"Yes, sir."

"I will have a policeman ready to receive him."

"O, no, no, Sir. Pray don't do that!" answered Martin, with a distressed look.

"Why not?" demanded Mr. Phillips.

"It will ruin me."

"How?"

"Bland will denounce me."

"Let him."

"I shall be exposed to the policeman."

"An evil, but a mild one, compared with that to which you were rushing in order to disentangle yourself. I must have my way, sir.

This matter has a.s.sumed a serious aspect. You are in my power, and must submit."

On the next day, punctual to the hour, Bland called.

"This is your man," said Mr. Phillips to his clerk. "Ask him into the counting-room." Bland, thus invited, walked back. As he entered, Mr. Phillips said,--

"My clerk owes you a hundred and fifty dollars, I understand."

"Yes, sir;" and the villain bowed.

"Make him out a receipt," said Mr. Phillips.

"When I receive the money," was coldly and resolutely answered.

Martin glanced sideways at the face of Bland, and the sudden change in its expression chilled him. The mild, pleasant, virtuous aspect he could so well a.s.sume was gone, and he looked more like a fiend than a man. In pictures he had seen eyes such as now gleamed on Mr.

Phillips, but never in a living face before.

The officer, who had been sitting with a newspaper in his hand, now gave his paper a quick rattle as he threw it aside, and, coming forward, stood beside Mr. Phillips, and looked steadily at the face of Bland, over which pa.s.sed another change: it was less a.s.sured, but not less malignant.

Mr. Phillips took out his pocket-book, and, laying a twenty-dollar bill on the desk by which they were standing, said,--

"Take this and sign a receipt."

"No, sir!" was given with determined emphasis. "I am not to be robbed in this way!"

"Ned," the officer now spoke, "take my advice, and sign a receipt."

"It's a cursed swindle!" exclaimed the baffled villain.

"We will dispense with hard names, sir!" The officer addressed him sternly. "Either take the money, or go. This is not a meeting for parley. I understand you and your operations."

A few moments Bland stood, with an irresolute air; then, clutching desperately at a pen, he dashed off a receipt, and was reaching for the money, when Mr. Phillips drew it back, saying,--

"Wait a moment, until I examine the receipt." He read it over, and then, pushing it towards Bland, said,--

"Write 'In full of all demands.'" A growl was the oral response.

Bland took the pen again, and wrote as directed.

"Take my advice, young man, and adopt a safer and more honorable business," said Mr. Phillips, as he gave him the twenty-dollar bill.

"Keep your advice for them that ask it!" was flung back in his face.

A look of hate and revenge burned in the fellow's eyes. After glaring at Mr. Phillips and Martin in a threatening way for several moments, he left more hurriedly than he had entered.

"And take my advice," said the officer, laying his hand on Martin's arm,--he spoke in a warning tone,--"and keep out of that man's way.

He'll never forgive you. I know him and his prowling gang, and they are a set of as hardened and dangerous villains as can be found in the city. You are 'spotted' by them from this day, and they number a dozen at least. So, if you would be safe, avoid their haunts. Give drinking saloons and billiard rooms a wide berth. One experience like this should last you a life-time."

Thus Martin escaped from his dangerous entanglement, but never again to hold the unwavering confidence of his employer. Mr. Phillips pitied, but could not trust him fully. A year afterwards came troublesome times, losses in business, and depression in trade.

Every man had to retrench. Thousands of clerks lost their places, and anxiety and distress were on every hand. Mr. Phillips, like others, had to reduce expenses, and, in reducing, the lot to go fell upon Martin Green. He had been very circ.u.mspect, had kept away from the old places where danger lurked, had devoted himself with renewed a.s.siduity to his employer's interests; but, for all this, doubts were forever arising in the mind of Mr. Phillips, and when the question, "Who shall go?" came up, the decision was against Martin.

We pity him, but cannot blame his employer.

III.

ANDY LOVELL.

ALL the village was getting out with Andy Lovell, the shoemaker; and yet Andy Lovell's shoes fitted so neatly, and wore so long, that the village people could ill afford to break with him. The work made by Tompkins was strong enough, but Tompkins was no artist in leather.

Lyon's fit was good, and his shoes neat in appearance, but they had no wear in them. So Andy Lovell had the run of work, and in a few years laid by enough to make him feel independent. Now this feeling of independence is differently based with different men. Some must have hundreds of thousands of dollars for it to rest upon, while others find tens of thousands sufficient. A few drop below the tens, and count by units. Of this last number was Andy Lovell, the shoemaker.

When Andy opened his shop and set up business for himself, he was twenty-four years of age. Previous to that time he had worked as journeyman, earning good wages, and spending as fast as he earned, for he had no particular love of money, nor was he ambitious to rise and make an appearance in the world. But it happened with Andy as with most young men he fell in love; and as the village beauty was compliant, betrothal followed. From this time he was changed in many things, but most of all in his regard for money. From a free-handed young man, he became prudent and saving, and in a single year laid by enough to warrant setting up business for himself. The wedding followed soon after.

The possession of a wife and children gives to most men broader views of life. They look with more earnestness into the future, and calculate more narrowly the chances of success. In the ten years that followed Andy Lovell's marriage no one could have given more attention to business, or devoted more thought and care to the pleasure of customers. He was ambitious to lay up money for his wife's and children's sake, as well as to secure for himself the means of rest from labor in his more advancing years. The consequence was, that Andy served his neighbors, in his vocation, to their highest satisfaction. He was useful, contented, and thrifty.

A sad thing happened to Andy and his wife after this. Scarlet fever raged in the village one winter, sweeping many little ones into the grave. Of their three children, two were taken; and the third was spared, only to droop, like a frost-touched plant, and die ere the summer came. From that time, all of Andy Lovell's customers noted a change in the man; and no wonder. Andy had loved these children deeply. His thought had all the while been running into the future, and building castles for them to dwell in. Now the future was as nothing to him; and so his heart beat feebly in the present. He had already acc.u.mulated enough for himself and his wife to live on for the rest of their days; and, if no more children came, what motive was there for a man of his views and temperament to devote himself, with the old ardor, to business?

So the change noticed by his customers continued. He was less anxious to accommodate; disappointed them oftener; and grew impatient under complaint or remonstrance. Customers, getting discouraged or offended, dropped away, but it gave Andy no concern.

He had, no longer, any heart in his business; and worked in it more like an automaton than a live human being.

At last, Andy suddenly made up his mind to shut up his shop, and retire from business. He had saved enough to live on--why should he go on any longer in this halting, miserable way--a public servant, yet pleasing n.o.body?

Mrs. Lovell hardly knew what to say in answer to her husband's suddenly formed resolution. It was as he alleged; they had laid up sufficient; to make them comfortable for the rest of their lives; and, sure enough, why should Andy worry himself any longer with the shop? As far as her poor reason went, Mrs. Lovell had nothing to oppose; but all her instincts were on the other side--she could not feel that it would be right.

But Andy, when he made up his mind to a thing, was what people call hard-headed. His "I won't stand it any longer," meant more than this common form of speech on the lips of ordinary men. So he gave it out that he should quit business; and it was soon all over the village.

Of course Tompkins and Lyon were well enough pleased, but there were a great many who heard of the shoemaker's determination with regret.

In the face of all difficulties and annoyances, they had continued to depend on him for foot garniture, and were now haunted by unpleasant images of cramped toes, corns, bunyons, and all the varied ill attendant on badly made and badly fitting shoes, boots, and gaiters. The retirement of Andy, cross and unaccommodating as he had become, was felt, in many homes, to be a public calamity.