Edith and John Part 43

"Shall I call him now?" asked Star, rising to go to the phone to have a talk with that gentleman.

"Yes. Papa must be in New York by this time; I should know soon, by wire, what Monroe has accomplished," said Edith, as Star was leaving her.

CHAPTER XXIV.

ELI JEREY IS CALLED INTO REQUISITION.

It is wonderful how prosperity transcends every other medium in working a transformation in a poor stick of humanity, who has been chortled, like a shuttle-lock, through the shifting warp of adversity. It is refreshing to observe, sometimes, how often men and women of lowly state can rise, as it were, by their own boot-straps from the great misfortune of having nothing to the ravishing luck of plent.i.tude. It is, indeed, very promising to know that favoring chance does not fall altogether upon the many who are born with silver spoons in their mouths.

It may not have been by his own boot-straps, unaided, that Eli Jerey rose to his plenary rank, or to his financial exhaltation. It may not have been luck alone, or chance, or extended aid, that hoisted him to the skies in the estimation of Peter Dieman; neither could it have been native ability, for his qualifications were of the superficial kind, to the casual observer.

However, whatever the cause might have been, it is one of the certainties of the things that be, that Eli was now in high favor with his former master, and was prospering like a well-conditioned house cat.

For Peter was certainly expiating himself for all the cuffs and rebuffs that he had heaped upon that poor lad's head during the period of his vengefulness. Eli was now made plenipotentiary extraordinary of the former junkman, with full rank of major-domo of his private affairs, insofar as they appertained, incidentally, to the junk shop, and the purveying of news of the System between the main totem himself and his sub-lunary lights.

And this elevation of Eli remodeled him as a being. Instead of the stoop-shouldered, thin-faced, frowsy-headed, dirty, unwashed, ill-clad, uncared-for individual that a scanty stipend produces, we now see an erect, sharp-featured, cleanly-shaved, neatly-clad, bright-eyed young man. Although not handsome, his face called for an adulatory responsiveness on the part of those who came in contact with him.

Instead of having his hands continually soiled by the labors that he performed in sorting junk and displaying it to customers, it was not uncommon to see him going about the shop gloved in brown kid. Instead of a dark-brown lay-down-collar shirt that always gave him the appearance of a water front workman, he wore boiled linen, decorated with a sparkling stud and flashy necktie. Instead of a greasy coat that hung loosely over his shoulders, he wore a neat business suit. Instead of the sweat-marked slouch hat, that used to loll on one side of his head, he wore a derby. Instead of a chain made of leather, to which was attached a bra.s.s watch, he carried a gold ticker fastened to his vest by a delicately-linked chain. Instead of the black, filthy office, in which his master sat for years, and in which he sat for a time after his advancement, he could now be found in a bright, clean place, papered and tinsled and decorated, with a new desk to write at, and a leather-cushioned chair to recline in. Thus he appeared in his new role, when the phone rang one day, as it often did, but now with a different purport than ever before.

"h.e.l.lo!" responded Eli, taking down the receiver and adjusting it to his ear.

"Yes; this is Mr. Jerey."

"Eli Jerey; yes."

"Yes; Mr. Dieman's office."

"Very busy day; but we're always open for new business."

"A private interview!"

"Can't you come to my office?--I never go out--except ordered by Mr.

Dieman."

"Can I come without him knowing it?"

"That depends on the business."

"Well; who wants me?"

"Can't set a time or date till I know."

"What! Mr. Jarney's residence!" ("Well, did you ever!" on the side).

"Miss Jarney!"

"Who's this talking?"

"Star Barton!" ("Well, did you ever!" on the side.)

"Where are you?" now more interested.

"At Mr. Jarney's?" ("Well, what now?" on the side.)

"What time?" ("Bless me!" on the side.)

"Yes; 7 p. m. will do." ("Ha, me!" on the side.)

"I will be there." ("On the dot!" on the side.)

Eli hung up the receiver, stood a moment tickling his right ear with his right forefinger, a habit of his. He was in a confused and perplexed state of mental consternation. Miss Barton! Miss Barton! Peter Dieman's step-daughter! went through his head in a rollicking way. "Hah! Miss Barton! I've heard of her; and Miss Jarney--rich--young--poorty--and wants an interview with me! Humph!" he mused, after sitting down. "Well, I must make myself presentable and go henceforth to meet them in all my dignity; yes, meet my superiors now in all my dignity--hah!"

In due time Eli repaired to his room in the Monongahela House, a very ancient and a very honorable inst.i.tution of its kind, no other being now suitable to Eli's enlarged notions of refinement. He clothed himself in his best bib and tucker, swatted down his hair so flat that it looked as if it had been laid by a weaver's hand to his swelling head, and powdered his sallow face till it was resplendent with the polish of good looks.

Now, when all was completed he stood before the mirror, like a coquettish maid primping to make a hit, and there saw reflected back a very well appearing young gentleman. He saw all that the art of ma.s.saging and ointing and cologning and talc.u.ming and starching and tailoring could mould out of the material at hand. He saw reflected back a youth five feet ten, with hollow eyes, peaked face, broad high forehead, condensed lips, and good teeth, long fingers, all supported by a suit of black, full dress style, with low white vest and patent-leather shoes. He saw also a diamond in his shirt front, white necktie banding a high collar, dark gray gloves, gold-headed cane, and high silk hat.

Before withdrawing from the allurements of the mirror, Eli touched his fingers to his lips, stroked his sandy eyebrows, turned around a time or two, with admiring glances over his shoulder, as he raised or lowered his brows, or opened his mouth to show his teeth to himself; adjusted the plug correctly on his head, drew on his gloves, took his cane in one hand, and receded from his reflected self, with many glancing and furtive farewells at the gla.s.s; closing the door at last, regretful that he had so soon to part company with such an admirable picture of budding manhood.

Settling himself inside a gla.s.s enclosed auto, he was whizzed through the appalling roar and grime of the city, like the formal gentleman that he was, sitting among the soft and heaving cushions, and looking to the pa.s.sers-by, in his flight, like the silhouette of a grand bourgeois in contradistinction to the votaries of swelldom. In his present state of perverted obsequiousness, Eli was intensely vain, usually; but now, while in the gentlemanly act of calling upon a lady, so rich that he could not count all her money did he live a thousand years, and at her own request, for an interview, he was ludicrously haughty, and hopelessly ignorant of the rules of deportment surrounding the secluded haunts of the refined and the mighty ones of power and place. Any failings that he had, he did not recognize. His limitations were his blisses. What he did not know, he took as a matter of no consequence. If he saw a thing, it permeated him with unwarped fascination; if he did not see it clearly, he was not troubled. Rising to his present state, was of more importance as to present results, than as to permanency. In truth, he was a queer combination of meritorious attainments now, meaning well, and doing his best to be an efficient collaborator of his famous mentor--Peter Dieman. He was a person of little imagination.

Everything was realistic to him. So, in journeying to the Jarneys on this auspicious occasion, he imagined very little about how he should act, or perform, or conduct himself, any more than what would come naturally to him.

When he presented himself to the two young ladies in the drawing room of the mansion on the hill, he shocked them by sitting down with his hat on his head, though they could not help but admire his rich habiliments.

"May I take your hat?" said Edith, approaching him, of course expecting to receive that piece of fine head covering to deposit it where it belonged at such a time.

"No, madam, no; it is just as well where it is," he replied, showing his white teeth through a crooked smile. "I've been used to setting with it on."

He was so unapproachable that Edith was embarra.s.sed before him. Star had remembered him as the former disheartening clerk of her step-father. She had seen him when she had gone to the junk shop with her mother that time for the redemption of her kitchen utensils, and she had not forgotten how cadaverous and impoverished he then looked.

"I presume you remember me?" asked Star, to break the monotonous silence into which the interview had perforce fallen.

"I don't know that I do," said he, showing his fine teeth again, and lifting his eyebrows. "So many people came into the store in those days that I paid little attention to them all."

"Don't you remember the girl who was so poorly clad that was with her mother the day Mr. Dieman gave back the dishes her father had p.a.w.ned, and against which you protested?" asked Star.

"Are you the gal?" he asked, with brightening face.

"I am the gal," returned Star, laughing.

"Well! how time makes changes in this world," he responded, looking her over carefully, hardly believing that the pretty face of Star's, with pretty gown to match, could possibly be the same. "It beats all; and you are the sister of all of Mr. Dieman's children?"

"Mrs. Dieman's children," she corrected.

"Yes, that's it--I know your sister May," he said, with a smile.

"Do you, really?" said Star.