“How do I know? Maybe he moved. Maybe neither address was his true one. These people very often give false names and addresses.”
“I suppose they do,” Merivale assented, and thereafter held his peace, chewing his nether lip as his habit was when engrossed in thought.
For my part I could not see that we had made much progress. I was beginning to get impatient.
Becky reappeared, bearing the box.
The box was about ten inches square by four or five in depth. It was empty. Merivale did not allow me to examine it. “Wait,” he said, as I reached out my hand to take it.
“Would you mind very much parting with this box, Miss Arkush?” he asked, fixing a pair of languishing eyes upon Rebecca’s face.
“What will you give me for it?” the business-like young lady inquired.
“What will you accept?”
“What’s it worth, father?”
“That box is worth two dollars any how,” replied the shameless old usurer, regardless of the fact that we knew to a mill what he had paid for it.