Cap'n Warren's Wards Part 26

"Caroline? No, no! She don't know 'twas your automobile at all. I never said a word to her, 'tain't likely. But afore she spent any of her money, I thought you'd ought to know, because I was sure you wouldn't let her. That's the way I'd feel, and I felt 'twas no more'n honest to give you the chance. I come on my own hook; she didn't know anything about it."

Malcolm drummed on the desk with nervous fingers. The flush remained on his face, his cigarette had gone out, and he threw the stump savagely into the wastepaper basket. Captain Elisha remained silent. At length the young man spoke.

"Well," he growled, pettishly, "how much will it take to square things with the gang? How much damages do they want?"

"Damages? Oh, there won't be any claim for damages, I guess. That is, no lawsuit, or anything of that kind. The Moriartys don't know you did it, and there's no reason why they should. I thought maybe I'd see to 'em and do whatever was necessary; then you could settle with me, and the whole business would be just between us two. Outside the doctor's bills and food and nursin' and such, all the extry will be just the old man's wages for the time he's away from the factory. 'Twon't be very heavy."

More reflection and finger tattoo by his companion. Then:

"All right! I'm in it, I can see that; and it's up to me to get out as easy as I can. I don't want any newspaper publicity. Go ahead! I'll pay the freight."

Captain Elisha arose and picked up his hat.

"That's fust-rate," he said, with emphasis. "I felt sure you'd see it just as I did. There's one thing I would like to say," he added: "that is, that you mustn't think I was stingy about helpin' 'em myself. But it wa'n't really my affair; and when Caroline spoke of spendin' her money and Steve's, I didn't feel I'd ought to let her. You see, I don't know as you know it yet, Mr. Dunn, but my brother 'Bije left me in charge of his whole estate, and, now that I've decided to take the responsibility, I've got a sort of pride in not wastin' any of his children's inheritance. Good day, Mr. Dunn. I'm much obliged to you."

He opened the office door. Malcolm, frowning heavily, suddenly asked a final question.

"Say!" he demanded, "you'll not tell Caroline or Steve a word of this, mind!"

The captain seemed surprised.

"I guess you didn't catch what I said, Mr. Dunn," he observed, mildly.

"I told you this whole business would be just between you and me."

CHAPTER IX

Captain Elisha was very far from considering himself a Solomon. As he would have said he had lived long enough with himself to know what a lot he didn't know. Nevertheless, deep down in his inner consciousness, he cherished a belief in his judgment of human nature. This judgment was not of the snap variety; he took his time in forming it. People and their habits, their opinions and characters, were to him interesting problems. He liked to study them and to reach conclusions founded upon reason, observation, and common sense. Having reached such a conclusion, it disturbed him when the subjects of the problem suddenly upset the whole process of reasoning and apparently proved him wrong by behavior exactly contrary to that which he had expected.

He had been pretty well satisfied with the result of his visit to young Dunn at the latter's office. Malcolm had surrendered, perhaps not gracefully or unconditionally, but he had surrendered, and the condition--secrecy--was one which the captain himself had suggested.

Captain Elisha's mental att.i.tude toward the son of the late Tammany leader had been a sort of good-natured but alert tolerance. He judged the young man to be a product of rearing and environment. He had known spoiled youths at the Cape and, in their surroundings, they behaved much as Malcolm did in his. The same disrespect to their elders, the same c.o.c.k-sureness, and the same careless indifference concerning the effect which their actions might have upon other people--these were natural and nothing but years and the hard knocks of experience could bring about a change. Elkanah Chase, country swell and pampered heir to the cranberry grower's few thousands, and Malcolm Dunn, idol of his set at the Metropolitan Club, were not so very different, except in externals. The similarity confirmed his opinion that New York was merely South Denboro many thousand times magnified.

He knew how young Chase had behaved after an interview not unlike that just described. In Elkanah's case several broken windows and property destroyed on a revel the night before the Fourth had caused the trouble.

In Malcolm's it was an automobile. Both had listened to reason and had knuckled under rather than face possible lawsuits and certain publicity.

Chase, however, had sulkily refused to speak to him for a month, and regained affability merely because he wished to borrow money. According to the captain's deduction, Dunn should have acted in similar fas.h.i.+on.

But he didn't; that was the odd part of it.

For Malcolm, when he next called, in company with his mother, at the Warren apartment, was not in the least sulky. Neither was he over effusive, which would have argued fear and a desire to conciliate.

Possibly there was a bit more respect in his greeting of the new guardian and a trifle less condescension, but not much. He still hailed Captain Elisha as "Admiral," and was as mockingly careless as ever in his remarks concerning the latter's newness in the big city. In fact, he was so little changed that the captain was perplexed. A chap who could take a licking when he deserved it, and not hold malice, must have good in him, unless, of course, he was hiding the malice for a purpose. And if that purpose was the wish to appear friendly, then the manner of hiding it proved Malcolm Dunn to possess more brains than Captain Elisha had given him credit for.

One thing seemed sure, the Dunns were not openly hostile. And Caroline was. Since the interview in the library, when the girl had, as she considered it, humiliated herself by asking her guardian for money to help the Moriartys, she had scarcely spoken to him. Stephen, taking his cue from his sister, was morose and silent, also. Captain Elisha found it hard to forgive his dead brother for bringing all this trouble upon him.

His lawyers, so Sylvester informed him, were setting about getting Rodgers Warren's tangible a.s.sets together. The task was likely to be a long one. The late broker's affairs were in a muddled state, the books were anything but clear, some of the investments were foreign, and, at the very earliest, months must elapse before the executor and trustee could know, for certain, just how large a property he was in charge of.

He found some solace and forgetfulness of the unpleasant life he was leading in helping the stricken Moriarty family. Annie, the maid at the apartment, he swore to secrecy. She must not tell Miss Caroline of his visits to her parents' home. Doctor Henry, also, though he could not understand why, promised silence. Caroline herself had engaged his services in the case, and he was faithful. But the patient was more seriously hurt than at first appeared, and consultations with a specialist were necessary.

"Goin' to be a pretty expensive job, ain't it, Doctor?" asked the captain of the physician.

"Rather, I'm afraid."

"All right. If expense is necessary, don't be afraid of it. You do just what you'd ought to, and send the bill to me."

"But Miss Warren insisted upon my sending it to her. She said it was a private matter, and one with which you, as her guardian, had nothing to do."

"I know. Caroline intends to use her own allowance, I s'pose. Well, let her think she will, if 'twill please her. But when it comes to the settlement, call on me. Give her any reason you want to; say a--er--wealthy friend of the family come to life all at once and couldn't sleep nights unless he paid the costs."

"But there isn't any such friend, is there, Captain Warren? Other than yourself, I mean?"

Captain Elisha grinned in appreciation of a private joke. "There is somebody else," he admitted, "who'll pay a share, anyhow. I don't know's he's what you call a bosom friend, and, as for his sleepin'

nights--well, I never heard he couldn't do that, after he went to bed.

But, anyhow, you saw wood, or bones, or whatever you have to do, and leave the rest to me. And don't tell Caroline or anybody else a word."

The Moriartys lived in a four-room flat on the East Side, uptown, and his visits there gave the captain a glimpse of another sort of New York life, as different from that of Central Park West as could well be imagined. The old man, Patrick, his wife, Margaret, the unmarried son, Dennis, who worked in the gas house, and five other children of various ages were hived somehow in those four small rooms and Captain Elisha marveled greatly thereat.

"For the land sakes, ma'am," he asked of the nurse, "how do they do it?

Where do they put 'em nights? That--that closet in there's the pantry and woodshed and kitchen and dinin' room; and that one's the settin'

room and parlor; and them two dry-goods boxes with doors to 'em are bedrooms. There's eight livin' critters to stow away when it's time to turn in, and one whole bed's took up by the patient. _Where_ do they put the rest? Hang 'em up on nails?"

The nurse laughed. "Goodness knows!" she said. "He should have been taken to the hospital. In fact, the doctor and I at first insisted upon his removal there. He would have been much better off. But neither he nor his wife would hear of it. She said he would die sure without his home comforts."

"Humph! I should think more likely he'd die with 'em, or under 'em. I watch that fleshy wife of his with fear and tremblin'. Every time she goes nigh the bed I expect her to trip over a young one and fall. And if she fell on that poor rack-o'-bones," with a wave of the hand toward the invalid, "'twould be the final smash--like a brick chimney fallin' on a lath hencoop."

At that moment the "brick chimney" herself entered the rooms and the nurse accosted her.

"Captain Warren here," she said, "was asking where you all found sleeping quarters."

Mrs. Moriarty smiled broadly. "Sure, 'tis aisy," she explained. "When the ould man is laid up we're all happy to be a bit uncomfortable. Not that we are, neither. You see, sor, me and Nora and Rosy sleep in the other bed; and Dinnie has a bit of a shakedown in the parlor; and Honora is in the kitchen; and--"

"There! there!" Captain Elisha interrupted hastily, "don't tell me any more. I'd rather _guess_ that the baby bunks in the cookstove oven than know it for sartin. How did the grapes I sent you go?" turning to the sick man.

"Aw, sor! they were foine. G.o.d bless you, sor! Mary be kind to you, sor!

Sure the angels'll watch over you every day you live and breathe!"

Captain Elisha bolted for the parlor, the sufferer firing a gatling fusillade of blessings after him. Mrs. Moriarty continued the bombardment, as she escorted him to the door of the flat.

"There! there!" protested the captain. "Just belay! cut it short, there's a good woman! I'll admit I'm a saint and would wear a halo instead of a hat if 'twa'n't so unfas.h.i.+onable. Good day. If you need anything you ain't got, tell the nurse."

The grateful Irish woman did not intend to let him escape so easily.

"Aw, sor," she went on, "it's all right for you to make fun. I'm the jokin' kind, sor, meself. Whin the flats where we used to be got afire and Pat had to lug me down the fire escape in his arms, they tell me I was laughin' fit to kill; that is, when I wasn't screechin' for fear he'd drop me. And him, poor soul, never seein' the joke, but puffin' and groanin' that his back was in two pieces. Ha, ha! Oh, dear! And him in two pieces now for sure and all! Aw, sor, it's all right for you to laugh it off, but what would we do without you? You and Miss Caroline, G.o.d bless her!"

"Caroline? She doesn't come here, does she?"

"Indade she does. Sure, she's the perfect little lady! Hardly a day pa.s.ses--or a week, anyhow--that she doesn't drop in to see how the ould man's gettin' on."

"Humph! Well, see that you don't tell her about me."