"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 passages 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 phosphorescent 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 debasement.
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 pass, 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 institution," answered Peter.