John Marvel, Assistant Part 37

Mr. Leigh smiled. "You generally do have. Is this one poorer than those others you have saddled on me?"

"Now don't be a tease. Levity is not becoming in a man of your dignity.

This man is very poor, indeed, and he has a houseful of children--and his wife----"

"I know," said Mr. Leigh, throwing up his hand with a gesture of appeal.

"I surrender. They all have. What can this one do? b.u.t.ts says every foreman in the shops is complaining that we are filling up with a lot of men who don't want to do anything and couldn't do it if they did."

"Oh! This man is a fine workman. He is an expert machinist--has worked for years in boiler shops--has driven----"

"Why is he out of a job if he is such a universal paragon? Does he drink? Remember, we can't take in men who drink--a bucket of beer cost us twelve thousand dollars last year, not to mention the loss of two lives."

"He is as sober as a judge," declared his daughter, solemnly.

"What is it then?--Loafer?"

"He lost his place where he lived before by a strike."

"A striker, is he! Well, please excuse me. I have a plenty of that sort now without going outside to drag them in."

"No--no--no--" exclaimed Eleanor. "My! How you do talk! You won't give me a chance to say a word!"

"I like that," laughed her father. "Here I have been listening patiently to a catalogue of the virtues of a man I never heard of and simply asking questions, and as soon as I put in a pertinent one, away you go."

"Well, listen. You have heard of him. I'll tell you who he is. You remember my telling you of the poor family that was on the train last year when I came back in Aunt Sophia's car and we delayed the train?"

"I remember something about it. I never was sure as to the facts in the case. I only know that that paper contained a most infamous and lying attack on me----"

"I know it--it was simply infamous--but this poor man had nothing to do with it. That was his family, and they came on to join him because he had gotten a place. But the Union turned him out because he didn't belong to it, and then he wanted to join the Union, but the walking-delegate or something would not let him, and now he has been out of work so long that they are simply starving."

"You want some money, I suppose?" Mr. Leigh put his hand in his pocket.

"No. I have helped him, but he isn't a beggar--he wants work. He's the real thing, Dad, and I feel rather responsible, because Aunt Sophia turned them out of the house they had rented and--though that young lawyer I told you of won his case for him and saved his furniture--the little bit he had--he has lost it all through the loan-sharks who eat up the poor. I tried to get Aunt Sophia to make her man, Gillis, let up on him, but she wouldn't interfere."

"That's strange, for she is not an unkind woman--she is only hard set in certain ways which she calls her principles."

"Yes, it was rather unfortunate. You see, Mr. Glave was there and Aunt Sophia!--you should have seen her."

She proceeded to give an account of Mrs. Argand's discovery of my ident.i.ty, and to take us both off.

"They didn't pay the rent, I suppose?"

"Yes. But it was not his fault--just their misfortune. His wife's illness and being out of work and all--it just piled up on top of him. A man named Ring--something--a walking-delegate whom he used to know back in the East, got down on him, and followed him up, and when he was about to get in the Union, he turned him down. And, Dad, you've just got to give him a place."

"Wringman, possibly," said Mr. Leigh. "There's a man of that name in the city who seems to be something of a leader. He's a henchman of Coll McSheen and does his dirty work for him. He has been trying to make trouble for us for some time. Send your man around to b.u.t.ts to-morrow, and I'll see what we can do for him."

Eleanor ran and flung her arms around her father's neck. "Oh! Dad! If you only knew what a load you have lifted from my shoulders. I believe Heaven will bless you for this."

"I know b.u.t.ts will," said Mr. Leigh, kissing her. "How's our friend, the Marvel, coming on?"

"Dad, he's a saint!"

"So I have heard before," said Mr. Leigh. "And that other one--how is he?"

"Which one?"

"Is there any other but the Jew? I have not heard of another reforming saint."

"No, he is a sinner," said Eleanor, laughing; and she went on to give an account of my episode with Pushkin, which she had learned from John Marvel, who, I may say, had done me more than justice in his relation of the matter.

"So the count thought a team had run over him, did he?"

"Yes, that's what Mr. Marvel said."

She related a brief conversation which had taken place between her and Pushkin and Mrs. Argand, after I left, in which Pushkin had undertaken to express his opinion of me, and she had given him to understand that she knew the true facts in the matter of our collision. All of which I learned much later.

"Well, I must say," said Mr. Leigh, "your new friend appears to have 'his nerve with him,' as you say."

"Dad, I never use slang," said Miss Eleanor, severely. "I am glad you have promised to give poor McNeil a place, for, if you had not, I should have had to take him into the house."

Mr. Leigh laughed.

"I am glad, too, if that is the case. The last one you took in was a reformed drunkard, you said, and you know what happened to him and also to my wine."

"Yes, but this one is all right."

"Of course he is."

There was joy next day in one poor little household, for McNeil, who had been dragging along through the streets for days with a weight, the heaviest the poor have to bear, bowing him down--want of work--came into his little bare room where his wife and children huddled over an almost empty stove, with a new step and a fresh note in his voice. He had gotten a place and it meant life to him and to those he loved.

XXV

FATE LEADS

One evening I called at Mrs. Kale's to see my two old ladies of the bundles and also Mrs. Kale, for whom I had conceived a high regard on account of her kindness to the former as well as to myself, and in the course of my visit Miss Pansy gave me, for not the first time, an account of the way in which they had been reduced from what they thought affluence to what she very truly called "straitened circ.u.mstances." I confess that I was rather bored by her relation, which was given with much circ.u.mlocution until she mentioned casually that Miss Leigh had tried to interest her father in their case, but he had said it was too late to do anything. The mention of her name instantly made me alert. If she was interested, I was interested also. I began to ask questions, and soon had their whole story as well as she could give it.

"Why, it may or may not be too late," I said. "It is certainly very long ago, and the chances of being able to do anything now are very remote; but if there was a fraud, and it could be proved, it would not be too late--or, at least, might not be."

"Oh! Do you think that you could recover anything for us? Mr. McSheen said nothing could be gotten out of it, and we paid him--a great deal,"

she sighed, "--everything we had in the world, almost."

"I do not say that, but if there was a fraud, and it could be proved, it might not be too late."

The name of McSheen had given me a suspicion that all might not be straight. Nothing could be if he was connected with it. I recalled what Wolffert had told me of McSheen's selling out. Moreover, her story had unconsciously been a moving one. They had evidently been hardly used and, I believed, defrauded. So, when she pressed me, and promised if she were ever able to do so she "would reward me generously," as if, poor soul, she could ever reward any one save with her prayers, I undertook to look into the matter for them, and I began next day.