Edith and John Part 21

They arrived home at last, with Edith still in a comatose state, and breathing like one entering into the dreadful sickness of pneumonia. She was hot and feverish. Her hands twitched nervously. She was muttering incoherently, but not ravingly.

When the cab rolled up the driveway to the side entrance of the mansion, John lifted Edith up in his arms, and, bidding Miss Barton to collect their effects together and follow, went into the brilliantly lighted hall. He was about to hand her over to her parents, but, by their direction, he continued, silently, with the father and mother, maids and physician coming after him, to her own room, and there he laid her down upon her bed.

As he released her, he gave one longing look at her pretty white face; and trusted, in his heart of hearts, that her parents would tenderly care for her, and fetch her back to life and health. Then, bidding them a whispered adieu, he departed for his own simple abode, with some lingering regrets that he could not have stayed by her bedside and nursed her through her illness.

CHAPTER XIII.

SECRET WORKINGS OF THE SYSTEM.

Peter Dieman was happier than usual one morning, if he could ever be called happy by any possibility of reading such a state of feeling in his otherwise perverse and irascible countenance.

Happy! Well, Peter was never more happy in all his born days; but what the extent of that emotion might become in his after life was hard to predict at that time. Whenever he was in good humor, it was his never failing custom to puff at his pipe like a locomotive getting off a dead-center, and to rub his hands with less expenditure of energy, and to squint his eyes with less vigor, and to shut his mouth with less desire to keep it closed. In fact, on such rare occasions, it might be said of him that he was in his subconscious region of retroflection, one peculiarly of his own conception.

The cause of all his good humor was nothing more nor less than the refres.h.i.+ng information, imparted to him the day before by Jim Dalls, i.

e., that Jim Dalls had decided to go to Europe. Ever since this enlightening piece of intelligence broke in upon the deepness of Peter's outward density of intellect, that gentleman was in a high fever of unemotional genuflexion. Why, mortal man! Peter sat in his chair all that night offering up his devotion to the G.o.ds that They might be propitiated for Their timely intervention. And betimes eating cheese and crackers, and drinking beer, and surfeiting the air with the delicious fumes of his strong pipe. He was, as it were, riding on the back of Alborak into the Seventh Heaven of satisfaction.

Not only did he offer up devotion to his Deity, but to other people's Deity as well. Oh, ah, he would think often, but never utter; it being merely his manner of getting rid of superfluous enthusiasm. And his oh, ah's extended on through the night, mixed with cheese, crackers, beer and smoke, to the hour of nine o'clock in the forenoon, at which time he suddenly aroused himself to the position of the hands on the dial of the dollar-clock that hung above his desk, where he could always keep his eyes on its horological exactness.

Having noted the time, Eli, after having opened the shop without the least interference with his master's meditations, was summarily summoned into the august presence of Peter through the tintinnabulating medium of a large iron spike applied to a piece of sounding bra.s.s suspended by a string from the ceiling on the right hand of his chair. Eli came to attention, with the alertness of an orderly, before Peter, and waited to be commanded.

"Call up 206070-m and tell him to come to my office by 9:45 sharp," said Peter in a less tragic tone than he had been used to in hurling his commands at Eli.

"Yes, sir," said Eli, departing. Directly he returned, stood attention, and said: "He will be here."

"Ha! Good!" cried Peter. "Go to work, you lazy scamp." The last to Eli.

Peter sat still and mused on in the same barbarous manner, with only one change in the program of his devotions, and that was, that since 7:30 o'clock he had kept his face close to the peephole that gave him a view into his store, and upon Eli's performances.

With his sharp little eyes he saw the store, with all its junk and jumble; he saw poor imbecilic Eli skipping about with undying devotion in his heart; but his devotion was to serve his master, and serve him well he did. Verily, he saw everything within the store, almost; at least what he did not see, he knew of, as if his eyes were optical divining rods. And he saw also beyond the confines of the four walls that bound him about during his personifying period of the devil:--He saw his henchmen going here and there, like earth-worms, through the devious pa.s.sages of the dark and dangerous undermining of the civic welfare; he saw the policemen on their beats, wielding their maces, as if he had as many hands as there were officers, and doing the execution thereof himself; he saw the aldermanic bodies sitting in grave deliberation on important or unimportant questions, knowing well himself what their action might be on anything out of the purely routine order; he saw the fawning sycophants, with their justifiable tale of complaint, being brushed aside by the higher hands; he saw the givers of tribute paying into the coffers of the system the doubloons of unwholesome preferment; he saw special privilege unsatisfied, always; he saw the needy come up with their last dollar out of the depths of their nefarious haunts and lay it at the feet of the King of Graft; he saw the glow-worms of society in a trail of phosph.o.r.escent splendor making the welkin ring with the hallelujahs of their perfections; he saw the merchant, the lawyer, the doctor, the craftsman, the civic officer, the banker, the broker, the justice, the bailiff, the warden--all he saw bending to the power of the system in all its ramifying debas.e.m.e.nt.

Aye, aye, he saw, too, the danger of it all to that system; to himself, to his friends, and to those who sat above him on the high throne erected to the debauchment of popular government, should Jim Dalls not be removed to some other ruler's domains. And Jim must go; and he must remain away; and all those of his present tendencies must go, and they, too, must remain away, if money was all that were needed to that end.

While Peter was reflecting on all these things, there came into view in the store, the short stalky form of a man past middle life. He walked with a business air in his every movement directly into the presence of Eli, to whom he gave the pa.s.s, which was 206070-m, and then continued through the alleyways of junk to the black hole in the rear occupied by Peter. Arriving at the door, he stepped inside, took off his hat, and sat down, sniffing with some annoyance at the foul atmosphere.

"Now, what is the game?" he asked Peter.

"I want ten thousand by ten o'clock," replied Peter, without any ceremonious introduction of the question.

"That's mighty short notice, I must say, Peter," replied the man.

"Fifteen minutes is time enough to rob any man or inst.i.tution," answered Peter.

"The pull on our purse strings is very great at present," said the man.

"Cut the strings," retorted Peter.

"Cut them, you all say; but that won't preserve enough to pay the fiddlers," responded the man.

"Fiddlers be d.a.m.ned," roared Peter; "we must get Jim Dalls out of the country."

"Is he wanting to squeal?" asked the man, with upraised eyebrows.

"He is ready," answered Peter.

"Can't he be staved off by bluff?" asked the man.

"He's best in Europe."

"Is he going there?"

"He's going."

"When?" asked the man, bluntly.

"Get the money, and buy a ticket also."

"Why, Peter, it will take a little more time than you have given to complete the transaction."

"You may have till 10:30 to fix it up."

"I will return at that time with the amount," said the man, reflectively.

The man was rising to pa.s.s out, when the tall figure of Jim Dalls entered. The latter halted, and stood a moment gazing at Peter and the man, with a contemptuous smile breaking up his smooth features.

"Well, Jacob Cobb, you here?" he asked, with some asperity in his voice.

"Who else do you see, Jim Dalls, I would like to know, besides we three?" asked Jacob, for that is whom the man proved to be, and who was known to Peter only as 206070-m; and to his henchmen as the same.

"You fellows are not turning a trick on me?" asked Jim Dalls, with suspicion.

"We will be only too glad to get rid of you," answered Peter.

"And see you safely out of the country," joined Cobb.

"I think I should have more money," remarked Jim; "ten thousand won't last long in Europe, where you have to bribe every sonof.a.gun who looks at you; it's worse than Pittsburgh."

"How much more?" asked Peter, in alarm.

"Twenty thousand ought to be sufficient," answered Jim.

"Bring three tickets, Cobb, reading from Pittsburgh to Paris, and twenty thousand," said Peter. "And that's the last sou I'll give you, you cur."

"Don't be too sure, Peter; I may ask for ten thousand more," said Jim, independently.

"You won't get it," barked Peter. "Get the tickets and the money, Cobb."