It was curious to note during our interview how frequently Andrew Ferkoe's pen stopped, and how his eyes slowly turned round to feast on me, and how, at a movement from his master, he brought the pen back to its proper place and started writing again. I became quite fascinated with watching him.
"Sit down, my dear New, sit down," said my uncle smoothly. "Tell me what I can do for you; I've been expecting to see you."
I sat down, and asked permission to smoke. My uncle grunted in response, and frowned; but I took the grunt for permission, and lighted a cigar. The old man gave a plaintive cough, as though suggesting that this was a martyrdom to which he must submit, and subsided into his own chair. I answered his question.
"I want you to do what you promised to do, Mr. Blowfield," I said.
"I promised under threats," he broke in grudgingly. "And a promise extorted under threats isn't binding."
"This one's got to be," I intimated sharply. "I want the young lady of whom I spoke to come here, and to find a refuge in this house; I want her to come to-day. I have not the means to keep her, and she is in danger of being traced by those who are her enemies. I have chosen you," I added, with a touch of sarcasm I could not avoid, "because I know your kindness of heart, and I know how eager you are to do me a service."
He grinned a little maliciously, then chuckled softly, and rubbed his bony hands together. "Very well, call it a bargain," he said. "After all, I'm quite pleased, my dear boy, to be able to help you; if I seem to have a gruff exterior, it's only because I find so many people trying to get the better of me."
I saw Andrew Ferkoe slowly raise his head, and stare at my uncle with a dropping jaw, as though he had suddenly discovered a ghost. My uncle, happening to catch him at it, brought his fist down with a bang upon the desk that caused the youth to spring an inch or two from his stool, and to resume his writing in such a scared fashion that I am convinced he must have written anything that first came into his mind.
"And what the devil is it to do with you?" roared my uncle, quite in his old fashion. "What do you think I pay you for, and feed you for, and give you comfortable lodging for? One of these days, Ferkoe, I'll turn you out into the world, and let you starve. Or I'll have you locked up, as I once had a graceless nephew of mine locked up," he added, with a contortion of his face in my direction that I imagine to have been intended for a wink.
The boy stole a look at me, and essayed a grin on his own account; evidently he congratulated himself on his secret knowledge of who I really was. Uncle Zabdiel, having relieved himself with his outburst, now turned to me again, still keeping up that pretty fiction of my being but a casual acquaintance, knowing nothing of any graceless nephew who had been very properly punished in the past.