The Store Boy

CHAPTER XXIII BEN'S VISIT TO THIRTY-FIRST STREET

Ben's evenings be­ing un­oc­cu­pied, he had no dif­fi­cul­ty in meet­ing the ap­point­ment made for him. He was afraid Con­rad might ask him to ac­com­pa­ny him some­where, and thus in­volve the ne­ces­si­ty of an ex­pla­na­tion, which he did not care to give un­til he had him­self found out why he had been sum­moned.

The ad­dress giv­en by James Barnes was easy to find. Ben found him­self stand­ing be­fore a brick build­ing of no un­com­mon ex­te­ri­or. The sec­ond floor seemed to be light­ed up; the win­dows were hung with crim­son cur­tains, which quite shut out a view of what was tran­spir­ing with­in.

Ben rang the bell. The door was opened by a col­ored ser­vant, who looked at the boy in­quir­ing­ly.

“Is Mr. Barnes with­in?” asked Ben.

“I don't know the gen­tle­man,” was the an­swer.

“He sent me a let­ter, ask­ing me to meet him here at nine o'clock.”

“Then I guess it's all right. Are you a tele­graph boy?”

“No,” an­swered Ben, in sur­prise.

“I reck­on it's all right,” said the ne­gro, rather to him­self than to Ben. “Come up­stairs.”

Ben fol­lowed his guide, and at the first land­ing a door was thrown open. Me­chan­ical­ly, Ben fol­lowed the ser­vant in­to the room, but he had not made half a dozen steps when he looked around in sur­prise and be­wil­der­ment. Novice as he was, a glance sat­is­fied him that he was in a gam­bling house. The dou­ble room was cov­ered with a soft, thick car­pet, chan­de­liers de­pend­ed from the ceil­ing, fre­quent mir­rors re­flect­ing the bril­liant lights en­larged the ap­par­ent size the apart­ment, and a showy bar at one end of the room held forth an al­lur­ing in­vi­ta­tion which most failed to re­sist. Around ta­bles were con­gre­gat­ed men, young and old, each with an in­tent look, watch­ing the vary­ing chances of for­tune.

“I'll in­quire if Mr. Barnes is here,” said Pe­ter, the col­ored ser­vant.

Ben stood un­easi­ly look­ing at the scene till Pe­ter came back.

“Must be some mis­take,” he said. “There's no gen­tle­man of the name of Barnes here.”

“It's strange,” said Ben, per­plexed.

He turned to go out, but was in­ter­rupt­ed. A man with a sin­is­ter ex­pres­sion, and the mus­cle of a prize fight­er, walked up to him and said, with a scowl:

“What brings you here, kid?”

“I re­ceived a let­ter from Mr. Barnes, ap­point­ing to meet me here.”

“I be­lieve you are ly­ing. No such man comes here.”

“I nev­er lie,” ex­claimed Ben in­dig­nant­ly.

“Have you got that let­ter about you?” asked the man sus­pi­cious­ly.

Ben felt in his pock­et for the let­ter, but felt in vain.

“I think I must have left it at home,” he said ner­vous­ly.

The man's face dark­ened.

“I be­lieve you come here as a spy,” he said.

“Then you are mis­tak­en!” said Ben, look­ing him fear­less­ly in the face.

“I hope so, for your sake. Do you know what kind of a place this is?”

“I sup­pose it is a gam­bling house,” Ben an­swered, with­out hes­ita­tion.

“Did you know this be­fore you came here?”

“I had not the least idea of it.”

The man re­gard­ed him sus­pi­cious­ly, but no one could look in­to Ben's hon­est face and doubt his word.

“At any rate, you've found it out. Do you mean to blab?”

“No; that is no busi­ness of mine.”

“Then you can go, but take care that you nev­er come here again.”

“I cer­tain­ly nev­er will.”

“Give me your name and ad­dress.”

“Why do you want it?”

“Be­cause if you break your word, you will be tracked and pun­ished.”

“I have no fear,” an­swered Ben, and he gave his name and ad­dress.

“Nev­er ad­mit this boy again, Pe­ter,” said the man with whom Ben had been con­vers­ing; nei­ther this boy, nor any oth­er, ex­cept a tele­graph boy."

“All right, sah.”

A minute lat­er, Ben found him­self on the street, very much per­plexed by the events of the evening. Who could have in­vit­ed him to a gam­bling house, and with what ob­ject in view? More­over, why had not James Barnes kept the ap­point­ment he had him­self made? These were ques­tions which Ben might have been bet­ter able to an­swer if he could have seen, just around the cor­ner, the tri­umphant look of one who was stealthi­ly watch­ing him.

This per­son was Con­rad Hill, who took care to va­cate his po­si­tion be­fore Ben had reached the place where he was stand­ing.

“So far, so good!” he mut­tered to him­self. “Mas­ter Ben has been seen com­ing out of a gam­bling house. That won't be like­ly to rec­om­mend him to Mrs. Hamil­ton, and she shall know it be­fore long.”

Ben could not un­der­stand what had be­come of the note sum­mon­ing him to the gam­bling house. In fact, he had dis­lodged it from the vest pock­et in which he thrust it, and it had fall­en up­on the car­pet near the desk in what Mrs. Hamil­ton called her “of­fice.” Hav­ing oc­ca­sion to en­ter the room in the evening, his pa­troness saw it on the car­pet, picked it up, and read it, not with­out sur­prise.

“This is a strange note for Ben to re­ceive,” she said to her­self. “I won­der what it means?”

Of course, she had no idea of the char­ac­ter of the place in­di­cat­ed, but was in­clined to hope that some good luck was re­al­ly in store for her young sec­re­tary.

“He will be like­ly to tell me soon­er or lat­er,” she said to her­self. “I will wait pa­tient­ly, and let him choose his own time. Mean­while I will keep the note.”

Mrs. Hamil­ton did not see Ben till the next morn­ing. Then he looked thought­ful, but said noth­ing. He was puz­zling him­self over what had hap­pened. He hard­ly knew whether to con­clude that the whole thing was a trick, or that the note was writ­ten in good faith.

“I don't un­der­stand why the writ­er should have ap­point­ed to meet me at such a place,” he re­flect­ed. “I may hear from him again.”

It was this re­flec­tion which led him to keep the mat­ter se­cret from Mrs. Hamil­ton, to whom be had been tempt­ed to speak.

“I will wait till I know more,” he said to him­self. “This Barnes knows my ad­dress, and he can com­mu­ni­cate with me if he choos­es.”

Of course, the read­er un­der­stands that Con­rad was at the bot­tom of the trick, and that the ob­ject was to per­suade Mrs. Hamil­ton that the boy she trust­ed was in the habit of vis­it­ing gam­bling hous­es. The plan had been sug­gest­ed by Con­rad, and the de­tails agreed on by him and his moth­er. This ex­plains why Con­rad was so con­ve­nient­ly near at hand to see Ben com­ing out of the gam­bling house.

The boy re­port­ed the suc­cess of this plan to his moth­er.

“I nev­er saw a boy look so puz­zled,” he said, with a chuck­le, “when he came out of the gam­bling house. I should like to know what sort of time he had there. I ex­pect­ed he would get kicked out.”

“I feel no in­ter­est in that mat­ter,” said his moth­er. “I am more in­ter­est­ed to know what Cousin Hamil­ton will say when she finds where her mod­el boy has been.”

“She'll give him his walk­ing tick­et, I hope.”

“She ought to; but she seems so in­fat­uat­ed with him that there is no telling.”

“When shall you tell her, moth­er?”

“I will wait a day or two. I want to man­age mat­ters so as not to arouse any sus­pi­cion.”