Part 10 (1/2)
St. Clair abandoned pretense. Perhaps curiosity overcame him, or his morning nerves were not so good as Jamie's. ”Of course I'll get the money. I lent it to a friend. But how did you ever know the d----d business was short?”
Jamie looked at him sadly. This was the man he had hoped to make a man of business. ”Mon, why didn't ye ask me for it? Do ye suppose they didna count their money the nicht?”
”You're so d----d mean!” swore St. Clair. ”Have you told my wife?”
”Ye'll not be telling Mercy?” gasped Jamie, unmindful of the result.
”I have told no one.”
”I'll make it all right with the teller, then,” said the other.
”Ye'll na be going back to the bank!” cried Jamie.
”Not go back? Do you suppose I can't be trusted with a matter of two hundred dollars?”
”Ye'll not be going back to the bank!” said Jamie firmly. ”Ye'll be taking Mr. Bowdoin's money next.”
”If it weren't for the teller--He's not a gentleman, and last week I was fool enough to tell him so. Did the teller find it out?”
”I found it out my own sel'.”
”Then no one else knows it?”
”Ye canna go back.”
”Then I'll tell Sadie it's all your fault,” said David.
Poor Jamie knocked his pipe against the doorstep and sighed. The other went upstairs.
VII.
It was some days after this that old Mr. Bowdoin came down town, one morning, in a particularly good humor. To begin with, he had effected with unusual success a practical joke on his auguster spouse. Then, he had gone home the night before with a bad cold; but (having given a family dinner in celebration of his wife's birthday and the return to Boston of his grandson Harley, and confined himself religiously to dry champagne) he had arisen quite cured. But at the counting-room he was met by son James with a face as long as the parting gla.s.s of whiskey and water he had sent him home with at eleven the previous evening.
”James Bowdoin, at your time of life you should not take Scotch whiskey after madeira,” said he.
”You seem fresh as a May morning,” said Mr. James. ”Did the old lady find out about the bronze Venus?”
Son and father chuckled. The old gentleman had purchased in his wife's name a nearly life-size Venus of Milo in bronze, and ordered it sent to the house, with the bill unreceipted, just before the dinner; so the entire family had used their efforts to the persuading old Mrs.
Bowdoin that she had acquired the article herself, while shopping, and then forgotten all about it.
”'Mrs. J. Bowdoin, Dr. To one Bronze Venus. One Thousand Dollars.
Rec'd Paym't'--blank!” roared Mr. Bowdoin. ”I told her she must pay it out of her separate estate,--I couldn't afford such luxuries.”
”'Why, James!'” mimicked the younger.
”'I never went near the store,'” mimicked the older.
”And when we told her it was all a sell, she was madder than ever.”
”Your mother never could see a joke,” sighed Mr. Bowdoin. ”She says the statue's improper, and she's trying to get it exchanged for chandeliers. She wouldn't speak to me when I went to bed; and I told her I'd a bad cold on my lungs, and she'd repent it when I was gone.
But to-day she's madder yet.”