The Store Boy

CHAPTER XXV CONRAD TAKES A BOLD STEP

“I hope, Mrs. Hamil­ton, you don't sus­pect me of fre­quent­ing gam­bling hous­es?” said Ben, af­ter his en­emy had left the room.

“No,” an­swered Mrs. Hamil­ton prompt­ly. “I think I know you too well for that.”

“I did go on Tues­day evening, I ad­mit,” con­tin­ued Ben. “I saw that Mrs. Hill did not be­lieve it, but it's true. I wish I hadn't lost the let­ter invit­ing me there. You might think I had in­vent­ed the sto­ry.”

“But I don't, Ben; and, for the best of all rea­sons, be­cause I found the note on the car­pet, and have it in my pos­ses­sion now.”

“Have you?” ex­claimed Ben glad­ly.

“Here it is,” said the la­dy, as she pro­duced the note from the desk be­fore her. “It is sin­gu­lar such a note should have been sent you,” she added thought­ful­ly.

“I think so, too. I had no sus­pi­cion when I re­ceived it, but I think now that it was writ­ten to get to in­to a scrape.”

“Then it must have been writ­ten by an en­emy. Do you know of any­one who would feel like do­ing you a bad turn?”

“No,” an­swered Ben, shak­ing his head.

“Do you rec­og­nize the hand­writ­ing?”

“No; it may have been writ­ten by some per­son I know, but I have no sus­pi­cion and no clew as to who it is.”

“I think we will let the mat­ter rest for a short time. If we say noth­ing about it, the guilty per­son may be­tray him­self.”

“You are very kind to keep your con­fi­dence in me, Mrs. Hamil­ton,” said Ben grate­ful­ly.

“I trust you as much as ev­er, Ben, but I shall ap­pear not to--for a time.”

Ben looked puz­zled.

“I won't ex­plain my­self,” said Mrs. Hamil­ton, with a smile, “but I in­tend to treat you cool­ly for a time, as if you had in­curred my dis­plea­sure. You need not feel sen­si­tive, how­ev­er, but may con­sid­er that I am act­ing.”

“Then it may be as well for me to act, too,” sug­gest­ed Ben.

“A good sug­ges­tion! You will do well to look sober and un­easy.”

“I will do my best,” an­swered Ben bright­ly.

The pro­gramme was car­ried out. To the great de­light of Mrs. Hill and Con­rad, Mrs. Hamil­ton scarce­ly ad­dressed a word to Ben at the sup­per ta­ble. When she did speak, it was with an abrupt­ness and cold­ness quite un­usu­al for the warm-​heart­ed wom­an. Ben looked de­pressed, fixed his eyes on his plate, and took very lit­tle part in the con­ver­sa­tion. Mrs. Hill and Con­rad, on the oth­er hand, seemed in very good spir­its. They chat­ted cheer­ful­ly, and ad­dressed an oc­ca­sion­al word to Ben. They could af­ford to be mag­nan­imous, feel­ing that he had for­feit­ed their rich cousin's fa­vor.

Af­ter sup­per, Con­rad went in­to his moth­er's room.

“Our plan's work­ing well, moth­er,” he said, rub­bing his hands.

“Yes, Con­rad, it is. Cousin Hamil­ton is very an­gry with the boy. She scarce­ly spoke a word to him.”

“He won't stay long, I'll be bound. Can't you sug­gest, moth­er, that he had bet­ter be dis­missed at once?”

“No, Con­rad; we have done all that is need­ed. We can trust Cousin Hamil­ton to deal with him. She will prob­ably keep him for a short time, till she can get along with­out his ser­vices.”

“It's lucky he lost the let­ter. Cousin Hamil­ton will think he nev­er re­ceived any.”

So the pre­cious pair con­ferred to­geth­er. It was clear that Ben had two dan­ger­ous and un­scrupu­lous en­emies in the house.

It was all very well to an­tic­ipate re­venge up­on Ben, and his sum­ma­ry dis­missal, but this did not re­lieve Con­rad from his pe­cu­niary em­bar­rass­ments. As a gen­er­al thing, his week­ly al­lowance was spent by the mid­dle of the week. Ben had re­fused to lend mon­ey, and there was no one else he could call up­on. Even if our hero was dis­missed, there seemed like­ly to be no im­prove­ment in this re­spect.

At this junc­ture, Con­rad was, un­for­tu­nate­ly, sub­ject­ed to a temp­ta­tion which proved too strong for him.

Mrs. Hamil­ton was the pos­ses­sor of an el­egant opera glass, which she had bought some years pre­vi­ous in Paris at a cost of fifty dol­lars. Gen­er­al­ly, when not in use, she kept it locked up in a bu­reau draw­er. It so hap­pened, how­ev­er, that it had been left out on a re­turn from a mati­nee, and lay up­on her desk, where it at­tract­ed the at­ten­tion of Con­rad.

It was an un­lucky mo­ment, for he felt very hard up. He wished to go to the the­ater in the evening with a friend, but had no mon­ey.

It flashed up­on him that he could raise a con­sid­er­able sum on the opera glass at Simp­son's, a well-​known pawn­bro­ker on the Bow­ery, and he could, with­out much loss of time, stop there on his way down to busi­ness.

Scarce­ly giv­ing him­self time to think, he seized the glass and thrust it in­to the pock­et of his over­coat. Then, putting on his coat, he hur­ried from the house.

Ar­rived at the pawn­bro­ker's, he pro­duced the glass, and asked:

“How much will you give me on this?”

The at­ten­dant looked at the glass, and then at Con­rad.

“This is a very valu­able glass,” he said. “Is it yours?”

“No,” an­swered Con­rad glibly. “It be­longs to a la­dy in re­duced cir­cum­stances, who needs to raise mon­ey. She will be able to re­deem it soon.”

“Did she send you here?”

“Yes.”

“We will loan you twen­ty dol­lars on it. Will that be sat­is­fac­to­ry?”

“Quite so,” an­swered Con­rad, quite elat­ed at the sum, which ex­ceed­ed his an­tic­ipa­tions.

“Shall we make out the tick­et to you or the la­dy?”

“To me. The la­dy does not like to have her name ap­pear in the mat­ter.”

This is so fre­quent­ly the case that the state­ment cre­at­ed no sur­prise.

“What is your name?” in­quired the at­ten­dant.

“Ben Bar­clay,” an­swered Con­rad read­ily.

The tick­et was made out, the mon­ey paid over, and Con­rad left the es­tab­lish­ment.

“Now I am in funds!” he said to him­self, “and there is no dan­ger of de­tec­tion. If any­thing is ev­er found out, it will be Ben who will be in trou­ble, not I.”

It was not long be­fore Mrs. Hamil­ton dis­cov­ered her loss. She val­ued the miss­ing opera glass, for rea­sons which need not be men­tioned, far be­yond its in­trin­sic val­ue, and though she could read­ily have sup­plied its place, so far as mon­ey was con­cerned, she would not have been as well pleased with any new glass, though pre­cise­ly sim­ilar, as with the one she had used for years. She re­mem­bered that she had not re­placed the glass in the draw­er, and, there­fore, searched for it wher­ev­er she thought it like­ly to have been left. But in vain.

“Ben,” she said, “have you seen my glass any­where about?”

“I think,” an­swered Ben, “that I saw it on your desk.”

“It is not there now, but it must be some­where in the house.”

She next asked Mrs. Hill. The house­keep­er was en­tire­ly ig­no­rant of Con­rad's theft, and an­swered that she had not seen it.

“I ought not to have left it about,” said Mrs. Hamil­ton. “It may have proved too strong a temp­ta­tion to some one of the ser­vants.”

“Or some­one else,” sug­gest­ed Mrs. Hill sig­nif­icant­ly.

“That means Ben,” thought Mrs. Hamil­ton, but she did not say so.

“I would fer­ret out the mat­ter if I were you,” con­tin­ued Mrs. Hill.

“I in­tend to,” an­swered Mrs. Hamil­ton qui­et­ly. “I val­ued the glass far be­yond its cost, and I will leave no means un­tried to re­cov­er it.”

“You are quite right, too.”

When Con­rad was told that the opera glass had been lost, he said:

“Prob­ably Ben stole it.”

“So I think,” as­sent­ed his moth­er. “But it will be found out. Cousin Hamil­ton has put the mat­ter in­to the hands of a de­tec­tive.”

For the mo­ment, Con­rad felt dis­turbed. But he quick­ly re­cov­ered him­self.

“Pshaw! they can't trace it to me,” he thought. “They will put it on Ben.”