Only an Irish Boy Andy Burke's Fortunes

CHAPTER XVII INTRODUCES AN ADVENTURER

Colonel Pre­ston, as I have al­ready said, was a rich man. He owned no re­al es­tate in the town of Cramp­ton, ex­cept the house in which he lived. His prop­er­ty was chiefly in stocks of dif­fer­ent kinds. In­clud­ed in these was a con­sid­er­able amount of stock in a woolen man­ufac­tur­ing es­tab­lish­ment, sit­uat­ed in Melville, some twelve miles dis­tant. Div­idends up­on these were paid se­mi-​an­nu­al­ly, on the first of April and Oc­to­ber. It was the cus­tom of Colonel Pre­ston at these dates to drive over to Melville, re­ceive his div­idends, and then drive back again.

Now, un­for­tu­nate­ly for the wel­fare of the com­mu­ni­ty, there are some per­sons who, un­will­ing to make a liv­ing by hon­est in­dus­try, pre­fer to pos­sess them­selves un­law­ful­ly of means to main­tain their un­prof­itable lives. Among them was a cer­tain black-​whiskered in­di­vid­ual, who, find­ing him­self too well known in New York, had sought the coun­try, ready for any stroke of busi­ness which might of­fer in his par­tic­ular line. Chance led his steps to Melville, where he put up at the vil­lage inn. He be­gan at once to in­sti­tute in­quiries, the an­swers to which might serve his pur­pose, and to avert sus­pi­cion, ca­su­al­ly men­tioned that he was a cap­ital­ist, and thought of set­tling down in the town. As he was well dressed, and had a plau­si­ble man­ner, this state­ment was not doubt­ed.

Among oth­er things, he made in­quiries in re­gard to the man­ufac­to­ry, what div­idends it paid, and when. Ex­press­ing him­self de­sirous of pur­chas­ing some stock, he in­quired the names of the prin­ci­pal own­ers of the stock. First among them was men­tioned Colonel Pre­ston.

“Per­haps he might sell some stocks,” sug­gest­ed the land­lord.

“Where can I see him?” asked James Fair­fax, for this was the name as­sumed by the ad­ven­tur­er.

“You can see him here,” an­swered the land­lord, “in a day or two. He will be here the first of the month to re­ceive his div­idends.”

“Will he stop with you?”

“Prob­ably. He gen­er­al­ly dines with me when he comes over.”

“Will you in­tro­duce me?”

“With plea­sure.”

Mr. Fair­fax ap­peared to hear this with sat­is­fac­tion, and said that he would make Colonel Pre­ston an of­fer for a part of his stock.

“Most of my prop­er­ty is in­vest­ed in re­al es­tate in New York,” he said; “but I should like to have some man­ufac­tur­ing stock; and, from what you tell me, I think fa­vor­ably of the Melville Mills.”

“We should be glad to have you set­tle down among us,” said the land­lord.

“I shall prob­ably do so,” said Fair­fax. “I am very much pleased with your town and peo­ple.”

In due time Colonel Pre­ston drove over. As usu­al, he put up at the ho­tel.

“Colonel,” said the land­lord, “there's a gen­tle­man stop­ping with me who de­sires an in­tro­duc­tion to you.”

“In­deed! What is his name?”

“James Fair­fax.”

“Is he from this neigh­bor­hood?”

“No; from the city of New York.”

“I shall be hap­py to make his ac­quain­tance,” said the colonel, cour­te­ous­ly; “but it must be af­ter I re­turn from the mills. I shall be there a cou­ple of hours, prob­ably. We are to have a di­rec­to­ri­al meet­ing.”

“I will tell him.”

Colonel Pre­ston at­tend­ed the di­rec­tors' meet­ing, and al­so col­lect­ed his div­idend, amount­ing to eight hun­dred dol­lars. These, in eight one-​hun­dred-​dol­lar bills, he put in his pock­et­book, and re­turned to the ho­tel for din­ner.

“Din­ner is not quite ready, colonel,” said the land­lord. “It will be ready in fif­teen min­utes.”

“Where is the gen­tle­man who wished to be in­tro­duced to me?” asked Colonel Pre­ston, who thought it would save time to be in­tro­duced now.

“I will speak to him.”

He went di­rect­ly to a dark-​com­plex­ioned man with black whiskers, and eyes that were rather sin­is­ter in ap­pear­ance. The eyes of­ten­est be­tray the re­al char­ac­ter of a man, where all oth­er signs fail. But Colonel Pre­ston was not a keen ob­serv­er, nor was he skilled in phys­iog­no­my, and, judg­ing of Mr. Fair­fax by his man­ner mere­ly, was rather pleased with him.

“You will par­don my ob­trud­ing my­self up­on you, Colonel Pre­ston,” said the stranger, with great ease of man­ner.

“I am hap­py to make your ac­quain­tance, sir.”

“I am a stranger in this neigh­bor­hood. The city of New York is my home. I have been led here by the rec­om­men­da­tions of friends who knew that I de­sired to lo­cate my­self in the coun­try.”

“How do you like Melville?”

“Very much--so much, that I may set­tle down here. But, Colonel Pre­ston, I am a man of busi­ness, and if I am to be here, I want some lo­cal in­ter­est--some stake in the town it­self.”

“Quite nat­ural, sir.”

“You are a busi­ness man your­self, and will un­der­stand me. Now, to come to the point, I find you have a man­ufac­to­ry here--a woolen man­ufac­to­ry, which I am giv­en to un­der­stand is pros­per­ous and prof­itable.”

“You are cor­rect­ly in­formed, Mr. Fair­fax. It is pay­ing twelve per cent. div­idends, and has done so for sev­er­al years.”

“That is ex­cel­lent. It is a bet­ter rate than I get for most of my city in­vest­ments.”

“I al­so have city in­vest­ments--bank stocks, and horse-​rail­road stocks, but, as you say, my mill stock pays me bet­ter than the ma­jor­ity of these.”

“You are a large own­er of the mill stock; are you not, Colonel Pre­ston?”

“Yes, sir; the largest, I be­lieve.”

“So I am in­formed. Would you be will­ing to part with any of it?”

“I have nev­er thought of do­ing so. I am afraid I could not re­place it with any oth­er that would be sat­is­fac­to­ry.”

“I don't blame you, of course, but it oc­curred to me that, hav­ing a con­sid­er­able amount, you might be will­ing to sell.”

“I gen­er­al­ly hold on to good stock when I get pos­ses­sion of it. In­deed, I would buy more, if there were any in the mar­ket.”

“He must have sur­plus funds,” thought the ad­ven­tur­er. “I must see if I can't man­age to get some in­to my pos­ses­sion.”

Here the land­lord ap­peared, and an­nounced that din­ner was ready.

“You dine here, then?” said Fair­fax.

“Yes; it will take me two hours to reach home, so I am obliged to dine here.”

“We shall dine to­geth­er, it seems. I am glad of it, as at present I hap­pen to be the on­ly per­ma­nent guest at the ho­tel. May I ask where you live?”

“In Cramp­ton.”

“I have heard fa­vor­ably of it, and have been in­tend­ing to come over and see the place, but the fact is, I am used on­ly to the city, and your coun­try roads are so blind, that I have been afraid of los­ing my way.”

“Won't you ride over with me this af­ter­noon, Mr. Fair­fax? I can't bring you back, but you are quite wel­come to a seat in my chaise one way.”

The eyes of the ad­ven­tur­er sparkled at the in­vi­ta­tion. Colonel Pre­ston had fall­en in­to the trap he had laid for him, but he thought it best not to ac­cept too ea­ger­ly.

“You are cer­tain­ly very kind, Colonel Pre­ston,” he an­swered, with af­fect­ed hes­ita­tion, “but I am afraid I shall be trou­bling you too much.”

“No trou­ble what­ev­er,” said Colonel Pre­ston, hearti­ly. “It is a lone­ly ride, and I shall be glad of a com­pan­ion.”

“A lone­ly ride, is it?” thought Fair­fax. “All the bet­ter for my pur­pose. It shall not be my fault if I do not come back with my pock­ets well lined. The div­idends you have just col­lect­ed will be bet­ter in my pock­ets than in yours.”

This was what he thought, but he said:

“Then I will ac­cept with plea­sure. I sup­pose I can eas­ily en­gage some­one to bring me back to Melville?”

“Oh, yes; we have a liv­ery sta­ble, where you can eas­ily ob­tain a horse and driv­er.”

The din­ner pro­ceed­ed, and Fair­fax made him­self un­usu­al­ly so­cial and agree­able, so that Colonel Pre­ston con­grat­ulat­ed him­self on the prospect of be­guil­ing the lone­li­ness of the way in such pleas­ant com­pa­ny. Fair­fax spoke of stocks with such ap­par­ent knowl­edge that the colonel imag­ined him to be a gen­tle­man of large prop­er­ty. It is not sur­pris­ing that he was de­ceived, for the ad­ven­tur­er re­al­ly un­der­stood the sub­ject of which he spoke, hav­ing been for sev­er­al years a clerk in a bro­ker's count­ing-​room in Wall Street. The loss of his sit­ua­tion was oc­ca­sioned by his ab­strac­tion of some se­cu­ri­ties, part of which he had dis­posed of be­fore he was de­tect­ed. He was, in con­se­quence, tried and sen­tenced to three years' im­pris­on­ment. At the end of this pe­ri­od he was re­leased, with no fur­ther taste for an hon­est life, and had since al­lied him­self to the class who thrive by prey­ing up­on the com­mu­ni­ty.

This was the man whom Colonel Pre­ston pro­posed to take as his com­pan­ion on his oth­er­wise lone­ly ride home.