CHAPTER IV.
MR. CRAVEN'S FOUR-LEGGED ENEMY.
Mr. Craven sought his office in a self-complacent mood.
"By Jove!" he said to himself, "I'm in luck. It's lucky I thought to tell her that I was rich. I wish somebody would come along and buy that Lake Superior mining stock at five cents on a dollar," he soliloquized, laughing softly; "and if he'd be good enough to let me know whereabouts that house in New York is, I should feel very much obliged. However, she believes it, and that's enough. No, on the whole, it isn't quite enough, for I must have some ready money to buy a wedding suit, as well as to pay for my wedding tour. I can't very well call upon Mrs. Craven that is to be for that. Once married, I'm all right."
The result of these cogitations was that having first secured Mrs. Hunter's consent to a marriage at the end of two months, he went to New York to see how he could solve the financial problem.
He went straightway to a dingy room in Nassau Street, occupied by an old man as shabby as the apartment he occupied. Yet this old man was a capitalist, who had for thirty years lent money at usurious interest, taking advantage of a tight money market and the needs of embarrassed men, and there are always plenty of the latter class in a great city like New York. In this way he had accumulated a large fortune, without altering his style of living. He slept in a small room connected with his office, and took his meals at some one of the cheap restaurants in the neighborhood. He was an old man, of nearly seventy, with bent form, long white beard, face seamed with wrinkles, and thick, bushy eyebrows, beneath which peered a pair of sharp, keen eyes. Such was Job Green, the money-lender.
"Good morning," said Mr. Craven, entering his office.
"Good morning, Mr. Craven," answered the old man. He had not met his visitor for a long time, but he seldom forgot a face. "I haven't seen you for years."
"No, I'm living in the country now."