Witch Winnie Part 15

The silent man nudged his partner and remarked, "Yes, we're agoin' to deal with the Government. That's a good way to put it."

The other man made an impatient gesture, and proceeded to explain a small machine to Mr. Trimble. "You don't exactly understand my friend,"

he said, "but no matter. This kind of a torpedo isn't of the submarine kind; we pack the explosives here, matches here, friction paper just beside them; but just here we are stuck, and we need you or some other mechanic to show us how the thing can be set off by electricity, the operator to touch a b.u.t.ton at a distance."

Mr. Trimble bent himself to an examination of the contrivance. He asked several questions, and as his scrutiny continued, his expression of satisfaction changed to one of mistrust and alarm. Suddenly he sprang from his seat and pushed the model from him. "That is an infernal-machine!" he exclaimed.

"That's about the long and the short of it," said the man, calmly.

"Then I will have nothing to do with it," and he turned toward the door.

"Hold on, my friend, ain't you a trifle in a hurry? All we want you to do is to fix that attachment for us, and if you won't do it some other man will, but we're willing to pay you a hundred dollars for the job.

That's a goodish sum to pay, if the job is a little queer, but I take it you're used to doing queer things by the big checks that pa.s.s through your hands."

"What do you mean?" Stephen Trimble asked, with some indignation.

"Oh! you needn't pretend innocence and poverty. A man doesn't scatter round thousand-dollar checks who's as poor as you pretend to be, or as good, either."

"Tell me what you mean."

"Now don't tell us you know nothing of a check for a thousand dollars which we happened to see in the pocket-book of the agent of this building when he dropped in here to collect the rent."

"I never saw a check for a thousand dollars in my life."

"If you don't believe me, ask that sharp little boy of yours. It was he who first let me know there was a scientific man in the building. He saw me unpacking my machine. I happened to leave the door open just a minute. I never saw such a sharp little fellow. In he comes and says, 'My father makes machines too. He's going to make us awful rich some day.'

"After that he got in the way of knocking at the door and asking to see my machinery. I thought it would be a good idea to let him, for he is too little to suspect anything, and I could stuff him with the idea that I was making a new kind of telegraph, for I was pretty sure that he would tell it around, and that people would believe it and think there couldn't be anything shady in what I was doing if I let anybody and everybody have the freedom of the room.

"Well, the day I'm speaking of, your little chap was sitting there turning the crank of that machine just as cheerful as if it wouldn't have blown him to kingdom come if the attachment had only been on, when in come another little feller who had been looking for him. 'See here,'

says my partner, 'there's getting to be too many children here; we don't keep a Sunday-school, we don't.' They were just going to leave, when the agent he come in with the rent contract for us to sign. Well, the boys lingered round, full of curiosity, as boys are, and we signed the paper and handed over the cash. Mr. Meyer in stuffing it away in his pocket-book brought to light that thousand-dollar check I was telling you about. He fumbled to hide it, but it dropped on the floor, and a little gust of wind carried it over to where the boys were. The oldest boy--Jim, I think your son called him--picked it up, and took a good look at it. 'Hullo!' says he, 'here's your father's name, Lovey. "Pay to the order of Stephen Trimble one thousand dollars"!' The agent he just made one dive for that check, with his fist lifted as though he were going to strike the boy, who dropped the check, and both the little shavers scooted, and none too soon either, for Meyer looked mad enough to kill the youngster, though he tried to laugh it off, and turned the check over and showed me that it was his fast enough, for it was endorsed on the back, 'Pay to the order of Solomon Meyer.'"

Stephen Trimble put his hand to his head in a dazed way. "You are fooling me," he said.

"Not we, but somebody is, if you don't know anything about it. Well, if you are not the bloated bondholder we took you for, perhaps you'll consider our little offer?"

"No, gentlemen, not to-night at least; give me time to think it over.

One bad man may have wronged me, but I've no call to go against the law."

"Oh yes, take plenty of time"--and they opened the door. Some one was knocking at Stephen Trimble's own room. It was the flap-jack man, and he had a white, scared face.

"What is the matter?" asked the inventor.

"Lovey's been--"

"Run over?" gasped the poor father.

"No; arrested."

Stephen Trimble gave one exclamation of horror--then asked, "What's he done?"

"Nothing but wheeling my cart; they'd have caught me, too, but I cut and run. This is a pretty country where one is arrested for trying to earn an honest living!"

This was the last straw. Stephen Trimble had said that he had no reason to resist the law, but he could not hold to that now. He staggered feebly down-stairs, knocked at the door of the dynamiters, and said.

"I've come back sooner than I thought I would. Give me five dollars in advance, and I'll undertake that business of yours to-morrow, and maybe I'll get up a little infernal-machine for my own use at the same time, but just now I must find my boy."

The man handed him some greasy bills. "You look sick," he said. "You had better go down to the free-lunch counter at the saloon, and have a good square meal."

Stephen Trimble went and ate and drank to excess. He did not look for his little son, and he did not return to the dynamiters' the next morning, for he was drunk--and drunk for three days thereafter. Then he sobered down and applied himself to the task which they had set him--a task intended to bring ruin to the cla.s.s which had wronged him. He knew the aims, now, of the men for whom he was working, and he believed that he sympathized with them. They told him how they had borne imprisonment and torture for no wrong in Russia, and had come to this country expecting to find it the land of justice and kindness, but had met only the same tyranny of the rich over the poor--the rich, who cared for nothing but their own pleasures, and ground the poor under their chariot wheels.

As he worked he thought of his own private wrongs, and determined that as soon as his task was done he would seek out the man who had defrauded him. He was sure now that the check which the men had seen had something to do with his invention, but he believed that the true criminal was some one behind Solomon Meyer, the man to whom the agent said he had given his invention--the landlord of Rickett's Court. It was like a man who would compel human beings to live in such a state as this to commit such a fraud. He would hunt him down presently, and in the name of his tenants, as well as in his own cause, wreak such revenge that the ears of those who heard should tingle.

The landlord of Rickett's Court, all unconscious of the volcano upon which he was treading, attended the closing exercises of Madame's school, and listened with pride to his daughter's prize essay on "The Dangerous Cla.s.ses."

There was a quotation from Ruskin at the close which p.r.i.c.ked his heart a little, and made him regret that it was not convenient to carry out his good intentions just at present. How charming she looked in the white India silk, and how well she read that final quotation!

"If you can fix some conception of a true human state of life to be striven for--life for all men as for yourselves--if you can determine some honest and simple order of existence following those trodden ways of wisdom, which are pleasantness, and seeking those quiet and withdrawn paths, which are peace; then, and so sanctifying wealth into 'commonwealth,' all your art, your literature, your daily labors, your domestic affection, and citizen's duty, will join and increase into one magnificent harmony. You will know, then, how to build well enough; you will build with stone well, but with flesh better--temples not made with hands, but riveted of hearts, and that kind of marble, crimson-veined, is indeed eternal."

Mr. Armstrong entirely ruined a new pair of kid gloves in applauding his daughter.

He consigned her to Mrs. Roseveldt for the summer, and in reply to that lady's urgent request that he would visit them, explained that Narragansett Pier was fraught with so many memories that he had never been able to revisit it. "I own a cottage a little distance from the town," he said. "It was there that both my children were born. We were in the habit of occupying it every summer, but since my wife's death I have neither been able to bring myself to go there, or to rent it, and it has remained closed."

"O papa, will you not let me have it for the summer?" Adelaide asked.

"Certainly, Puss, if you want to fit it up for a studio or that sort of thing; but it is in a lonely wood, and you must have suitable company with you if you think of staying there. If you manage to change the place and infuse new life in it, I may bring myself to look in upon you there. At all events, I will join you at the Roseveldts' as soon as I can; just now important business detains me."

The business, as we know, was the securing and putting in service of the new invention for heating and lighting cars. It was necessary for him to go to Washington to arrange for the patent, and it was on this trip that a clue most unexpectedly fell into his hands which seemed to lead to a startling discovery--a discovery which was more to him than any fortune which the invention could bring.

It all came about through a sc.r.a.p of paper which fell in his way as he was looking about his hotel bedroom for a piece of wrapping-paper with which to cover the model of the machine which he was about to carry to the Patent Office. He could find nothing for this purpose but an old newspaper which lined a bureau drawer. In this he wrapped his machine, and took his seat in the street-car, the package resting on his knees.

His fellow-pa.s.sengers were uninteresting, and he fixed his gaze upon his package. A heading to one of the shorter articles in the old newspaper attracted his attention.

"Remarkable Case of Loss of Ident.i.ty; the Doctors Puzzled."

He read on aimlessly.

"The physicians of ---- Hospital have an interesting case. One of their patients, a lady, was injured at the burning of the _Henrietta_ in the Sound in October last. This accident has resulted in a partial loss of memory, and total confusion as to her ident.i.ty. The unfortunate lady is unable to give her own name or that of her friends. A remarkable circ.u.mstance in the case is the fact that, through all the horror and suffering of the accident, which has resulted in a partial loss of her reason, the poor lady kept her infant boy safely clasped in her arms, and the child, entirely uninjured, was rescued with her. Any person who believes that he recognizes a lost friend in this case is requested to communicate with Dr. H. C. Carver, of the ---- Hospital."

Mr. Armstrong read this item over and over again. He had believed that his wife and child were lost in the burning of this steamer. Was it possible that they still lived? and what had ten years of separation done for them?

The horse-car pa.s.sed the Patent Office, but he did not see it. He sat staring at the newspaper until the car brought him to the end of the route and the conductor touched him on the shoulder. "Pardon me, sir; I forgot you wished to stop at the Patent Office."

Mr. Armstrong woke from his reverie.

"No," he exclaimed, "at the railway station. I want to catch the next train for New York--none until 4 o'clock? Then I _will_ go to the Patent Office; but, first, tell me where I can send a telegram."

[Ill.u.s.tration: {Drawing of girls near rowboat.}]

CHAPTER XI.