X.
Jamie McMurtagh still continued his rather sidelong gait as he walked twice daily up State Street to the Old Colony Bank, bearing in a rusty leathern wallet anything, from nothing to a hundred thousand dollars, the daily notes and discounts of James Bowdoin's Sons. James Bowdoin and his father used to watch him occasionally from the window. There were certain pensioners, mostly undeserving, who knew old Mr. Bowdoin's hours better than he did himself. It was funny to see old McMurtagh elbow these aside as he sidelonged up the street. There was an old drunken longshoreman; and a wood-chopper who never chopped wood; and a retired choreman discharged for cause by Mr. Bowdoin's wife; and another shady party, suspected by Mr. James, not without cause, of keeping in his more prosperous moments a modest farobank,—all of whom were sure enough of their shilling could they catch old Mr. Bowdoin in the office alone. If they waylaid him in the street, it annoyed him a little, and he would give them only ninepence. It was currently believed by Mr. James and Jamie that there was a combination among these gentry not to give away the source whence they derived this modest but assured income. Once there had been Homeric strife and outcry on the dusty wooden stairs; and Mr. James had rushed out only in time to see the longshoreman, in a moment of sober strength, ejecting with some violence a newcomer of appearance more needy than himself. It was suggested to Jamie by this that a similar but mutual exclusion might be effected, at least against the weaker couple of the primal four; but there was an honorable sense of property among these beggars, and they refused to fail in respect for each other's vested rights. But Jamie was most impatient of them, and would sometimes attempt to hold the counting-room by fraudulent devices, even after the old gentleman would get down town. It was after an attempt of this sort, ending in something like a row between Jamie and his master, that the two Bowdoins, father and son, stood now watching the clerk's progress up the street. A touch of sulkiness, left by his late down-putting, affected his gait, which was more crablike than usual.
"An invaluable fellow, after all," said Mr. Bowdoin; "a very Caleb."
"How Dickensy he is!" answered Mr. James, more familiar with the recent light literature just appearing.
"A perfect bookkeeper! Not an error in twenty years!"
"Do you notice he's rather looking younger?"
"'Tis that little child he's adopted," said the old gentleman. "The poor fellow's got something to love. All men need that—and even a few women," he chuckled. Mr. Bowdoin was addicted to portentous cynicism against the sex, which he wholly disbelieved in.
"The little child—yes," said Mr. James, more thoughtfully. "Do you know what he wants?"
"He wants?"