Mr. Weeks unwillingly went to the inner door and rapped on the panel. Then he turned the knob and went in, remaining a few moments, and on making his appearance again, held the portal open for Caleb.
The sailor entered without a word and the clerk closed the door behind him; then, as on the former occasion, he applied his ear to the keyhole with a diligence worthy of a better cause.
Mr. Pepper was sitting before his desk, which was piled high with papers and letters. The day’s mail had just been sent up from the wareroom office by Mr. Marks, the ship owner’s trusted manager, or “steward,” as Adoniram was in the habit of calling him.
Beginning business life more than fifty years before in this very office, Mr. Pepper could not bring himself, as his trade increased, to leave his old quarters, and having found his manager to be a most trustworthy man, he had shifted the burden of the more arduous duties upon his younger shoulders, and himself reposed contentedly amid the dust, the gloom, and the cobwebs of the Water Street office.
Thus it was that few people ever saw “Adoniram Pepper & Co.” to know him; but to his old friends, those of his boyhood and young manhood, Adoniram was always the same.
Naturally his acquaintance was mostly among seafaring people, and it was no uncommon sight to see old hulks of sea captains and ship owners, long past their usefulness, steering a course for the Water Street office on pleasant days, where they were sure to receive a pleasant word from the little old gentleman, if he was in, and not uncommonly a bit of silver to spend for luxuries which “sailors’ homes” do not supply.
The old gentleman sprang up at once at Caleb’s appearance, the unfortunate eye glasses jumping off the chubby little nose as though they were endowed with life. Mr. Pepper gave both his hands to the huge sailor, who indeed looked gigantic beside the little man, and begged him to sit down.
“Well, Pepperpod, how are ye?” cried the sailor, in a hearty roar that shook the light pieces of furniture in the room, just as his bulk shook the chair he had seated himself in.
“First rate, old Timbertoes!” declared the old gentleman, laughing merrily. “So you’re out of the hospital, at last?”
“I be, Adoniram, I be!” cried Caleb with satisfaction. “Never was so glad o’ anythin’ in my life. Them sawbones would have killed me if they’d kep’ me there much longer.”