The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him Part 39

On the second visit Mrs. Bohlmann said:

"I tell my good man that with all the law-business he has, he must get a lawyer for a son-in-law."

Peter had not heard Mrs. Bohlmann say to her husband the evening before, as they were prinking for dinner:

"Have you told Mr. Stirling about your law business?"

Nor Mr. Bohlmann's prompt:

"Yah. I dells him der last dime."

Yet Peter wondered if there were any connection between the two statements. He liked the two girls. They were nice-looking, sweet, sincere women. He knew that Mr. Bohlmann was ranked as a millionaire already, and was growing richer fast. Yet--Peter needed no blank walls.

During this summer, Peter had a little more law practice. A small grocer in one of the tenements came to him about a row with his landlord. Peter heard him through, and then said: "I don't see that you have any case; but if you will leave it to me to do as I think best, I'll try if I can do something," and the man agreeing, Peter went to see the landlord, a retail tobacconist up-town.

"I don't think my client has any legal grounds," he told the landlord, "but he thinks that he has, and the case does seem a little hard. Such material repairs could not have been foreseen when the lease was made."

The tobacconist was rather obstinate at first. Finally he said, "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll contribute one hundred dollars towards the repairs, if you'll make a tenant named Podds in the same building pay his rent; or dispossess him if he doesn't, so that it shan't cost me anything."

Peter agreed, and went to see the tenant in arrears. He found that the man had a bad rheumatism and consequently was unable to work. The wife was doing what she could, and even the children had been sent on the streets to sell papers, or by other means, to earn what they could. They also owed a doctor and the above-mentioned grocer. Peter went back to the landlord and told him the story.

"Yes," he said, "it's a hard case, I know, but, Mr. Stirling, I owe a mortgage on the place, and the interest falls due in September. I'm out four months' rent, and really can't afford any more." So Peter took thirty-two dollars from his "Trustee" fund, and sent it to the tobacconist. "I have deducted eight dollars for collection," he wrote.

Then he saw his first client, and told him of his landlord's concession.

"How much do I owe you?" inquired the grocer.

"The Podds tell me they owe you sixteen dollars."

"Yes. I shan't get it."

"My fee is twenty-five. Mark off their bill and give me the balance."

The grocer smiled cheerfully. He had charged the Podds roundly for their credit, taking his chance of pay, and now got it paid in an equivalent of cash. He gave the nine dollars with alacrity.

Peter took it upstairs and gave it to Mrs. Podds. "If things look up with you later," he said, "you can pay it back. If not, don't trouble about it. Ill look in in a couple of weeks to see how things are going."

When this somewhat complicated matter was ended, he wrote about it to his mother:

"Many such cases would bankrupt me. As it is, my fund is dwindling faster than I like to see, though every lessening of it means a lessening of real trouble to some one. I should like to tell Miss De Voe what good her money has done already, but fear she would not understand why I told her. It has enabled me to do so much that otherwise I could not have afforded. There is only one hundred and seventy-six dollars left. Most of it though, is merely loaned and perhaps will be repaid. Anyway, I shall have nearly six hundred dollars for my work as secretary of the Food Commission, and I shall give half of it to this fund."

CHAPTER x.x.x.

A "COMEDY."

When the season began again, Miss De Voe seriously undertook her self-imposed work of introducing Peter. He was twice invited to dinner and was twice taken with opera parties to sit in her box, besides receiving a number of less important attentions. Peter accepted dutifully all that she offered him. Even ordered a new dress-suit of a tailor recommended by Lispenard. He was asked by some of the people he met to call, probably on Miss De Voe's suggestion, and he dutifully called. Yet at the end of three months Miss De Voe shook her head.

"He is absolutely a gentleman, and people seem to like him. Yet somehow--I don't understand it."

"Exactly," laughed Lispenard. "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."

"Lispenard," angrily said Miss De Voe, "Mr. Stirling is as much better than--"

"That's it," said Lispenard. "Don't think I'm depreciating Peter. The trouble is that he is much too good a chap to make into a society or a lady's man."

"I believe you are right. I don't think he cares for it at all."

"No," said Lispenard. "Barkis is not willin'. I think he likes you, and simply goes to please you."

"Do you really think that's it?"

Lispenard laughed at the earnestness with which the question was asked.

"No," he replied. "I was joking. Peter cultivates you, because he wants to know your swell friends."

Either this conversation or Miss De Voe's own thoughts, led to a change in her course. Invitations to formal dinners and to the opera suddenly ceased, and instead, little family dinners, afternoons in galleries, and evenings at concerts took their place. Sometimes Lispenard went with them, sometimes one of the Ogden girls, sometimes they went alone. It was an unusual week when Peter's mail did not now bring at least one little note giving him a chance to see Miss De Voe if he chose.

In February came a request for him to call. "I want to talk with you about something," it said. That same evening he was shown into her drawing-rooms. She thanked him with warmth for coming so quickly, and Peter saw that only the other visitors prevented her from showing some strong feeling. He had stumbled in on her evening--for at that time people still had evenings--but knowing her wishes, he stayed till they were left alone together.

"Come into the library," she said. As they pa.s.sed across the hall she told Morden, "I shall not receive any more to-night."

The moment they were in the smaller and cosier room, without waiting to sit even, she began: "Mr. Stirling, I dined at the Manfreys yesterday."

She spoke in a voice evidently endeavoring not to break. Peter looked puzzled.

"Mr. Lapham, the bank president, was there."

Peter still looked puzzled.

"And he told the table about a young lawyer who had very little money, yet who put five hundred dollars--his first fee--into his bank, and had used it to help--" Miss De Voe broke down, and, leaning against the mantel, buried her face in her handkerchief.

"It's curious you should have heard of it," said Peter.

"He--he didn't mention names, b-bu-but I knew, of course."

"I didn't like to speak of it because--well--I've wanted to tell you the good it's done. Suppose you sit down." Peter brought a chair, and Miss De Voe took it.

"You must think I'm very foolish," she said, wiping her eyes.

"It's nothing to cry about." And Peter began telling her of some of the things which he had been able to do:--of the surgical brace it had bought; of the lessons in wood-engraving it had given; of the sewing-machine it had helped to pay for; of the arrears in rent it had settled. "You see," he explained, "these people are too self-respecting to go to the big charities, or to rich people. But their troubles are talked over in the saloons and on the doorsteps, so I hear of them, and can learn whether they really deserve help. They'll take it from me, because they feel that I'm one of them."

Miss De Voe was too much shaken by her tears to talk that evening. Miss De Voe's life and surroundings were not exactly weepy ones, and when tears came they meant much. She said little, till Peter rose to go, and then only:

"I shall want to talk with you, to see what I can do to help you in your work. Please come again soon. I ought not to have brought you here this evening, only to see me cry like a baby. But--I had done you such injustice in my mind about that seven dollars, and then to find that--Oh!" Miss De Voe showed signs of a recurring break-down, but mastered herself. "Good-evening."

Peter gone, Miss De Voe had another "good" cry--which is a feminine phrase, quite incomprehensible to men--and, going to her room, bathed her eyes. Then she sat before her boudoir fire, thinking. Finally she rose. In leaving the fire, she remarked aloud to it:

"Yes. He shall have Dorothy, if I can do it."