Part 12 (2/2)
”Always said it would come to this. Perhaps you'd go out in carpet slippers if you saw your wife's cousin hanged before your eyes”--
”JAMES!” cried Mrs. Bowdoin. But the old lady was equal to the occasion; she rose (--”and no one there to cut him down!” interpolated the old gentleman feebly) and went to the door.
The two men got up and ran to the window. There was something of a crowd around the old elm-tree; and, pressing their noses against the pane, they could see the old lady crossing the street.
”I think, sir,” said Mr. Harley to his grandfather, ”it's about time to get down town.” And they took their straw hats and sallied forth.
But as they walked down the shady side of the street, old Mr.
Bowdoin's progress became subject to impediments of laughter, which were less successfully suppressed as they got farther away, and in which the young man finally joined. ”Though it's really too bad,” he added, by way of protest, now laughing harder than his grandfather.
”I'm going to get her that carriage to-day,” said the elder deprecatingly. Then, as if to change the subject, ”Did you see old Jamie after he left, yesterday?”
”I think I caught him in a florist's, buying flowers,” answered Harley.
”Buying flowers!” The old gentleman burst into such a roar that the pa.s.sers in the crowded street stopped there to look at him, and went down town the merrier for it. ”At a florist's! But what were you doing?” he closed, with sudden gravity.
”All right, governor, quite all right. I was buying them for grandma's birthday. _That_'s all over. Though I'm sorry for her, just the same.
How does the man live, now?”
”Jamie says he's doing well,” answered the other hurriedly. ”By the way, stop at the bank and tell them to give old Jamie a holiday to-day. He'd never take it of himself.”
”Aren't you coming down?” Harley spoke as he turned in by Court Square,--a poor neighborhood then, and surrounded by the police lodging-houses and doubtful hotels.
”Not that way,” said Mr. Bowdoin. ”I hate to see the faces one meets about there, poor things. Hope the flowers will get up to your grandmother, Harley; she'll need 'em!” And the old man went off with a final chuckle. ”Hanging on a tree! Well, 'twould be a good thing for the country if he were.” Of such mental inconsistencies were benevolent old gentlemen then capable.
But when Harley reached the bank, though it was late, Jamie had not yet arrived. Harley thought he knew the reason of this; but when old Mr. Bowdoin came, at noon, the clerk was still away; and the old gentleman, who had been merry all day, looked suddenly grave and waited. At one Jamie came in, hurrying.
”I hoped you would have taken a holiday to-day,” said Mr. Bowdoin.
”I have come down to close the books,” replied Jamie, not sharply. Mr.
Bowdoin looked at him.
”Mr. Stanchion could have done that. Stanchion!”
”The books are nearly done, sir,” said that gentleman, hurrying to the window.
”I prefer to stay, sir, and close the books myself, if Mr. Stanchion will forgive me.” He spoke calmly; he gave both men a sudden sense of sorrow. Mr. Bowdoin accompanied him behind the rail.
”Come, Jamie, you need the rest, and Mercedes”--
”She has gone back, sir--and I--have business in New York. I must ask for three days off, beginning to-morrow.”
”You shall have it, Jamie, you shall have it. But why did you not go back with Mercedes?”
Jamie made no reply but to bury his face in the ledger, and the old gentleman went away. The bank closed at two o'clock; by that time Jamie had not half finished his figuring. The cas.h.i.+er went, and the teller, each with a ”good-night,” to which Jamie hardly responded. The messenger went, first asking, ”Can I help you with the safe?” to which Jamie gave a gruff ”I am not ready.” The day-watchman went, and the night-watchman came, each with his greeting. Jamie nodded. ”You are late to-day.” ”I had to be.” Last of all, Harley Bowdoin came in (one suspects, at his grandfather's request), on his way home from the old counting-room on the wharves.
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