“And so this is the business you conduct, is it?”—Page [317].
“There’s the boss now himself. You can settle the matter with him,” remarked the bookkeeper, triumphantly. But to his surprise his master neither spoke nor stirred, and he was even more surprised to see Mr. Dexter gaze fixedly at him for a moment or two and then exclaim in tones of burning contempt, “And so this is the business that you conduct, is it? Lending money to these poor people and then charging them the most outrageous rates. I suppose you thought you could take advantage of this poor old woman who saved your life at the risk of her own when you were a mere child in arms! I believed in you Samuel in spite of the warnings that I received. But now, I have done with you forever. My servants will gather your effects together and send them to you, but I forbid you to enter my premises again under any consideration whatever.”
Trembling with indignation, and with his face suffused with a high color, the old gentleman picked up the package containing Ann Crehan’s little treasures, laid the sum of ten dollars and twenty-five cents on the desk and departed, slamming the door behind him as he went out with such violence that every window-sash in the room rattled.
And then the tall, sinister looking man reentered his private den, threw himself down upon a chair, and with his head bowed in an attitude of hopeless dejection muttered: “Everything has slipped from me just as I thought it was within my grasp. There is but one hope left, and that is the boy.”
Chapter XXXV.
When old Mr. Dexter reached his home that afternoon, he called one of his servants and ordered him to gather all of his nephew’s possessions together and pack them up, to be sent away to an address which he would give them. At the same time he informed them that if his kinsman should call, he was not to be admitted to the house on any pretense whatever. Having done this, the old gentleman sat down in his library and wrote a letter to his lawyer, who was also a warm personal friend of many years’ standing, and invited him to visit him the next day, in order that they might dine together, and at the same time discuss an important matter of business. This business was nothing less than the drawing up of a new will, which should deprive his renegade kinsman of any chance of profiting by his death. Never in his whole life had the warm-hearted and benevolent old gentleman been so stirred with shame and indignation as he had that day by the sudden discovery that his nephew, who was of his own flesh and blood, and bore his name, was making his livelihood by loaning money to poor and unfortunate people at usurious rates of interest. That a man of proper breeding and right feelings should take advantage of the necessities of the unfortunate, stirred Mr. Dexter’s soul to its inmost depths.
As for the money-lender, he realized as soon as his uncle had left the office and slammed the door behind him, that in all probabilities he would never see the inheritance of which he had for so many years based his hopes. However, there was one chance left to him, and he determined to try it before abandoning all expectation forever. He must see Bruce at once, for it was possible that, through this boy, he might once more obtain influence over his uncle. Taking his hat and cane, he left his office and hurried away to the address which Bruce had given him, and it was there that he learned that the boy had found employment in the very truck-house in which his father had worked before him, and where he had often visited him.
“That was stupid enough in me,” he remarked, angrily, to himself, as he strolled along toward the quarters. “I might have known that the boy’s first thought after his father’s death would have been to look for some sort of a job in the department. If I had only made inquiries there instead of sending that rascally newsboy up into the country, I would have found him long ago, and might have had him out of the way by this time, if I had seen the necessity for it.”
As he entered the building, Charley Weyman recognized him, and went upstairs to look for the boy. “He’s down there, Bruce,” he said, significantly.
“Who’s down there?” demanded the young lad, looking up from the book which he was reading.