"To one of my tenants!" echoed Israel.
"To one of yer tenants," repeated Ninety-One, and he crossed a curb as he spoke, and gave Israel's arm a wrench which nearly tore the arm from Israel's body.—"You know you've got to pay cash for your bank notes to-day, an' you'll need all the money you can rake and scrape. To-day's rent day,—isn't it? Well we're goin' on a collectin' tower among yer tenants. Ain't we feller sinners?"
He turned his head over his shoulder, and again the clubs thundered their applause.
"I'll be deuced if I can make you out," said Israel arranging his 'specks,' which had been displaced by one of the eccentric movements of Ninety-One,—and Israel felt very much like the man who, finding himself late at night, very unexpectedly in the same bed-room with a bear, desired exceedingly to get out of the room, but thought it no more than proper to be civil to the bear until he did get out.
"Don't you own a four story house in —— street?" asked Ninety-One.
"I do. Four stories,—two to four rooms on a floor,—besides the cellar and the garret,—a fine property,—and, to-day is rent day—"
"You stow 'em away like maggots in a stale cheese,—do you?" and Ninety-One stopped, and regarded the little man admiringly,—added in an under tone, "Moses! How I'd like to have the picklin' of you!"
Thus conversing, they entered Broadway, along which they passed for some distance, and at last turned down a by-street, the eleven following them closely all the while.
They stood in front of a huge edifice, four stories high, formerly the residence of a Wall street nabob, but now the abode of,—we are afraid to say how many families. The basement was, of course, occupied as a manufactory of New York politics,—in simple phrase, it was a grog-shop; and although the hour was exceedingly late, its door was wide open, and the sound of drunken voices and the fragrance of bad rum, ascended together upon the frosty air. Save the basement, the entire front of the mansion was dark as ink; the poor wretches who burrowed in its many rooms, were doubtless sleeping after the toil of the winter's day.
"In the fourth story you have a tenant named —— ——?" whispered Ninety-One.