The Store Boy

CHAPTER VIII SQUIRE DAVENPORT'S FINANCIAL OPERATION

Squire Dav­en­port was a thor­ough­ly re­spectable man in the es­ti­ma­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty. That such a man was ca­pa­ble of de­fraud­ing a poor wid­ow, count­ing on her ig­no­rance, would have plunged all his friends and ac­quain­tances in­to the pro­found­est amaze­ment.

Yet this was pre­cise­ly what the squire had done.

Mr. Bar­clay, who had pros­pered be­yond his wife's knowl­edge, found him­self sev­en years be­fore in pos­ses­sion of a thou­sand dol­lars in hard cash. Know­ing that the squire had a bet­ter knowl­edge of suit­able in­vest­ments than he, he went to him one day and asked ad­vice. Now, the squire was fond of mon­ey. When he saw the am­ple roll of bank notes which his neigh­bor took from his wal­let, he felt a de­sire to pos­sess them. They would not be his, to be sure, but mere­ly to have them un­der his con­trol seemed pleas­ant. So he said:

“Friend Bar­clay, I should need time to con­sid­er that ques­tion. Are you in a hur­ry?”

“I should like to get the mon­ey out of my pos­ses­sion. I might lose it or have it stolen. Be­sides, I don't want my wife to dis­cov­er that I have it.”

“It might make her ex­trav­agant, per­haps,” sug­gest­ed the squire.

“No, I am not afraid of that; but I want some day to sur­prise her by let­ting her see that I am a rich­er man than she thinks.”

“Very ju­di­cious! Then no one knows that you have the mon­ey?”

“No one; I keep my busi­ness to my­self.”

“You are a wise man. I'll tell you what I will do, friend Bar­clay. While I am not pre­pared to rec­om­mend any par­tic­ular in­vest­ment, I will take the mon­ey and give you my note for it, agree­ing to pay six per cent. in­ter­est. Of course I shall in­vest it in some way, and I may gain or I may lose, but even if I do lose you will be safe, for you will have my note, and will re­ceive in­ter­est se­mi-​an­nu­al­ly.”

The pro­pos­al struck Mr. Bar­clay quite fa­vor­ably.

“I sup­pose I can have the mon­ey when I want it again?” he in­quired.

“Oh, cer­tain­ly! I may re­quire a month's no­tice to re­al­ize on se­cu­ri­ties; but if I have the mon­ey in bank I won't even ask that.”

“Then take the mon­ey, squire, and give me the note.”

So, in less than five min­utes, the mon­ey found its way in­to Squire Dav­en­port's strong box, and Mr. Bar­clay left the squire's pres­ence well sat­is­fied with his note of hand in place of his roll of green­backs.

Near­ly two years passed. In­ter­est was paid punc­tu­al­ly three times, and an­oth­er pay­ment was all but due when the un­for­tu­nate cred­itor died in Chica­go. Then it was that a ter­ri­ble temp­ta­tion as­sailed Squire Dav­en­port. No one knew of the trust his neigh­bor had re­posed in him--not even his wife. Of course, if the note was found in his pock­et, all would be known. But per­haps it would not be known. In that case, the thou­sand dol­lars and thir­ty dol­lars in­ter­est might be re­tained with­out any­one be­ing the wis­er.

It is on­ly fair to say that Squire Dav­en­port's face flushed with shame as the un­wor­thy thought came to him, but still he did not ban­ish it. He thought the mat­ter over, and the more he thought the more un­will­ing he was to give up this sum, which all at once had be­come dear­er to him than all the rest of his pos­ses­sions.

“I'll wait to see whether the note is found,” he said to him­self. “Of course, if it is, I will pay it--” That is, he would pay it if he were obliged to do it.

Poor Bar­clay was buried in Chica­go--it would have been too ex­pen­sive to bring on the body--and pret­ty soon it tran­spired that he had left no prop­er­ty, ex­cept the mod­est cot­tage in which his wid­ow and son con­tin­ued to live.

Poor Mrs. Bar­clay! Ev­ery­body pitied her, and lament­ed her strait­ened cir­cum­stances. Squire Dav­en­port kept si­lence, and thought, with guilty joy, “They haven't found the note; I can keep the mon­ey, and no one will be the wis­er!”

How a rich man could have been guilty of such con­sum­mate meaness I will not un­der­take to ex­plain, but “the love of mon­ey is the root of evil,” and Squire Dav­en­port had love of mon­ey in no com­mon mea­sure.

Five years passed. Mrs. Bar­clay was obliged to mort­gage her house to ob­tain the means of liv­ing, and the very man who sup­plied her with the mon­ey was the very man whom her hus­band had blind­ly trust­ed. She lit­tle dreamed that it was her own mon­ey he was dol­ing out to her.

In fact, Squire Dav­en­port him­self had al­most for­got­ten it. He had come to con­sid­er the thou­sand dol­lars and in­ter­est ful­ly and ab­so­lute­ly his own, and had no ap­pre­hen­sion that his mean fraud would ev­er be dis­cov­ered. Like a thun­der­bolt, then, came to him the dec­la­ra­tion of his un­sa­vory vis­itor that the note was in ex­is­tence, and was in the hands of a man who meant to use it. Smit­ten with sud­den pan­ic, he stared in the face of the tramp. But he was not go­ing to give up with­out a strug­gle.

“You are ev­ident­ly try­ing to im­pose up­on me,” he said, men­tal­ly brac­ing up. “You wish to ex­tort mon­ey from me.”

“So I do,” said the tramp qui­et­ly.

“Ha! you ad­mit it?” ex­claimed the squire.

“Cer­tain­ly; I wouldn't have tak­en the trou­ble to come here at great ex­pense and in­con­ve­nience if I hadn't been ex­pect­ing to make some mon­ey.”

“Then you have come to the wrong per­son; I re­peat it, you've come to the wrong per­son!” said the squire, straight­en­ing his back and ey­ing his com­pan­ion stern­ly.

“I be­gin to think I have,” as­sent­ed the vis­itor.

“Ha! he weak­ens!” thought Squire Dav­en­port. “My good man, I rec­om­mend you to turn over a new leaf, and seek to earn an hon­est liv­ing, in­stead of try­ing to levy black­mail on men of means.”

“An hon­est liv­ing!” re­peat­ed the tramp, with a laugh. “This ad­vice comes well from you.”

Once more the squire felt un­com­fort­able and ap­pre­hen­sive.

“I don't un­der­stand you,” he said ir­ri­ta­bly. “How­ev­er, as you your­self ad­mit, you have come to the wrong per­son.”

“Just so,” said the vis­itor, ris­ing. “I now go to the right per­son.”

“What do you mean?” asked Squire Dav­en­port, in alarm.

“I mean that I ought to have gone to Mrs. Bar­clay.”

“Sit down, sit down!” said the squire ner­vous­ly. “You mustn't do that.”

“Why not?” de­mand­ed the tramp, look­ing him calm­ly in the face.

“Be­cause it would dis­turb her mind, and ex­cite er­ro­neous thoughts and ex­pec­ta­tions.”

“She would prob­ably be will­ing to give me a good sum for bring­ing it to her, say, the over­due in­ter­est. That alone, in five years and a half, would amount to over three hun­dred dol­lars, even with­out com­pound­ing.”

Squire Dav­en­port groaned in spir­it. It was in­deed true! He must pay away over thir­teen hun­dred dol­lars, and his loss in rep­uta­tion would be even greater than his loss of mon­ey.

“Can't we com­pro­mise this thing?” he stam­mered. “I don't ad­mit the gen­uine­ness of the note, but if such a claim were made, it would se­ri­ous­ly an­noy me. I am will­ing to give you, say, fifty dol­lars, if you will de­liv­er up the pre­tend­ed note.”

“It won't do, squire. Fifty dol­lars won't do! I won't take a cent less than two hun­dred, and that is on­ly about half the in­ter­est you would have to pay.”

“You speak as if the note were gen­uine,” said the squire un­com­fort­ably.

“You know whether it is or not,” said the tramp sig­nif­icant­ly. “At any rate, we won't talk about that. You know my terms.”

In the end Squire Dav­en­port paid over two hun­dred dol­lars, and re­ceived back the note, which af­ter a hasty ex­am­ina­tion, he threw in­to the fire.

“Now,” he said rough­ly, “get out of my house, you--forg­er.”

“Good-​evening, squire,” said the tramp, laugh­ing and nod­ding to the dis­com­fit­ed squire. “We may meet again, some time.”

“If you come here again, I will set the dog on you.”

“So much the worse for the dog! Well, good-​night! I have en­joyed my in­ter­view--hope you have.”

“Im­pu­dent scoundrel!” said the squire to him­self. “I hope he will swing some day!”

But, as he thought over what had hap­pened, he found com­fort in the thought that the se­cret was at last safe. The note was burned, and could nev­er reap­pear in judg­ment against him. Cer­tain­ly, he got off cheap.

“Well,” thought the tramp as he strode away from the squire's man­sion, “this has been a prof­itable evening. I have two hun­dred dol­lars in my pock­et, and--I still have a hold on the ras­cal. If he had on­ly ex­am­ined the note be­fore burn­ing it, he might have made a dis­cov­ery!”