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STARRY FLAG SERIES

OLIVER OPTIC

THE STARRY FLAG SERIES,

BY OLIVER OPTIC.

  I. THE STARRY FLAG; OR, THE YOUNG FISHERMAN OF CAPE ANN.

 II. FREAKS OF FORTUNE; OR, HALF ROUND THE WORLD.

III. BREAKING AWAY; OR, THE FORTUNES OF A STUDENT.

 IV. SEEK AND FIND; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF A SMART BOY.

  V. MAKE OR BREAK; OR, THE RICH MAN'S DAUGHTER.

 VI. DOWN THE RIVER; OR, BUCK BRADFORD AND HIS TYRANTS.

[Illustration: THE BANKER'S PRIVATE OFFICE.--Page 199.]

MAKE OR BREAK;

OR,

THE RICH MAN'S DAUGHTER.

BY

OLIVER OPTIC,

AUTHOR OF "YOUNG AMERICA ABROAD," "THE ARMY AND NAVY STORIES,"
"THE WOODVILLE STORIES," "THE BOAT-CLUB STORIES," "THE RIVERDALE
STORIES," ETC.

BOSTON
LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by
WILLIAM T. ADAMS,
In the Clerks Office of the District Court of the
District of Massachusetts.

COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY WILLIAM T. ADAMS.
All rights reserved.

MAKE OR BREAK.

TO

MY YOUNG FRIEND

KATE V. AUSTIN

This Book

IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.

PREFACE.

"MAKE OR BREAK," is the fifth of the serial stories published in "OUR
BOYS AND GIRLS"--a magazine which has become so much the pet of the
author, that he never sits down to write a story for it without being
impressed by a very peculiar responsibility. Twenty thousand youthful
faces seem to surround him, crying out for something that will excite
their minds, and thrill their very souls, while a calmer, holier voice,
speaking in the tones of divine command, breathes gently forth, "Feed
my lambs."

The lambs will not eat dry husks; they loathe the tasteless morsel
which well-meaning sectarians offer them, and hunger for that which
will warm their hearts and stir their blood. The heart may be warmed,
and the blood may be stirred, without corrupting the moral nature. The
writer has endeavored to meet this demand in this way, and he is quite
sure that the patient, striving, toiling Leo, and the gentle,
self-sacrificing, and devoted Maggie, do nothing in the story which
will defile the mind or the heart of the young people. The Bible
teaches what they sought to practise. He is satisfied that none of his
readers will like Mr. Fitzherbert Wittleworth well enough to make him
their model.

The author is willing the story should pass for what it is worth; and
there is no danger that it will be over or undervalued, for the young
people are even more critical than their elders. But the favor already
bestowed upon it has added to the weight of the writer's obligation to
the juvenile reading public; and in giving them the story in its
present permanent form, he trusts that it will continue to be not only
a source of pleasure, but a stimulus to higher aims, and a more
resolute striving for what is worth having both in the moral and
material world.

WILLIAM T. ADAMS.

HARRISON SQUARE, MASS., July 28, 1868.

CONTENTS.

                                                        PAGE

                             CHAPTER I.

MR. WITTLEWORTH GETS SHAVED                               11

                             CHAPTER II.

BOY WANTED                                                22

                             CHAPTER III.

MR. CHECKYNSHAW IS VIOLENT                                34

                             CHAPTER IV.

MR. CHECKYNSHAW RUSHES                                    46

                             CHAPTER V.

LEO MAGGIMORE                                             57

                             CHAPTER VI.

LEO'S WORKSHOP                                            69

                             CHAPTER VII.

MON PERE                                                  81

                             CHAPTER VIII.

MAKE OR BREAK                                             94

                             CHAPTER IX.

MR. CHECKYNSHAW AND FAMILY                               105

                             CHAPTER X.

THE WITTLEWORTH FAMILY                                   117

                             CHAPTER XI.

THE MOUSE BUSINESS                                       129

                             CHAPTER XII.

LEO'S WONDERFUL PERFORMERS                               141

                             CHAPTER XIII.

WITTLEWORTH _VS._ CHECKYNSHAW                            153

                             CHAPTER XIV.

MR. CHECKYNSHAW IS LIBERAL                               166

                             CHAPTER XV.

A SUCCESS IN THE MOUSE BUSINESS                          179

                             CHAPTER XVI.

THE LETTER FROM MARGUERITE                               192

                             CHAPTER XVII.

THE LETTER FROM FRANCE                                   204

                             CHAPTER XVIII.

THE QUITCLAIM DEED                                       217

                             CHAPTER XIX.

FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD                              229

                             CHAPTER XX.

AN AVALANCHE OF GOOD FORTUNE                             241

                             CHAPTER XXI.

MR. WITTLEWORTH'S WRONGS                                 254

                             CHAPTER XXII.

THE TWO MARGUERITES                                      266

                             CHAPTER XXIII.

THE GOLD LOCKET                                          279

                             CHAPTER XXIV.

ME AND CHOATE                                            291

                             CHAPTER XXV.

THE ELEGANT YOUNG LADY                                   303

                             CHAPTER XXVI.

THE RICH MAN'S DAUGHTER                                  315

MAKE OR BREAK;

OR,

THE RICH MAN'S DAUGHTER.

CHAPTER I.

MR. WITTLEWORTH GETS SHAVED.

"Next gentleman!" said André Maggimore, one of the journeyman barbers
in the extensive shaving saloon of Cutts & Stropmore, which was
situated near the Plutonian temples of State Street, in the city of
Boston.

"Next gentleman!" repeated André, in tones as soft and feminine as
those of a woman, when no one responded to his summons.

"My turn?" asked a spare young man of sixteen, throwing down the Post,
with a languid air, and rising to his feet.

"Yes, sir," replied André, politely; and if the speaker had been out of
sight, one would have supposed it was a lady who spoke. "Have your hair
cut?"

"No; shave."

The barber seemed to be startled by the announcement, though there was
not the faintest smile on his face to discourage the candidate for
tonsorial honors. The young man looked important, threw his head back,
pursed up his lips, and felt of his chin, on which there was not the
slightest suspicion of a beard visible to the naked eye. Mr.
Fitzherbert Wittleworth would not have been willing to acknowledge that
he had not been shaved for three weeks; but no one could have
discovered the fact without the aid of a powerful microscope.

Mr. Wittleworth spread out his attenuated frame in the barber's chair,
and dropped his head back upon the rest. André looked as grave and
serious as though he had been called to operate upon the face of one of
the venerable and dignified bank presidents who frequented the shop. He
was a journeyman barber, and it was his business to shave any one who
sat down in his chair, whether the applicant had a beard or not. If
André's voice was soft and musical, his resemblance to the gentler sex
did not end there, for his hand was as silky and delicate, and his
touch as velvety, as though he had been bred in a boudoir.

He adjusted the napkin to the neck of the juvenile customer with the
nicest care, and then, from the force of habit, passed his downy hand
over the face upon which he was to operate, as if to determine whether
it was a hard or a tender skin. Several of the customers smiled and
coughed, and even the half-dozen journeymen were not unmoved by the
spectacle.

"What are you going to do, Fitz?" asked the occupant of the adjoining
chair, who had just straightened himself up to be "brushed off."

"I'm going to have a shave," answered Mr. Wittleworth, as confidently
as though the proceedings were entirely regular.

"What for?"

"To have my beard taken off, of course. What do you shave for?"

"Put on the cream, and let the cat lick it off."

"That's a venerable joke. I dare say the barber did not gap his razor
when he shaved you. I always feel better after I have been shaved,"
added Mr. Wittleworth, as André laid a brush full of lather upon his
smooth chin.

Those in the shop chuckled, and some of them were ill-mannered enough
to laugh aloud, at the conceit of the young man who thus announced to
the world that his beard had grown. Even the proprietors of the
extensive shaving saloon looked uncommonly good-natured, though it was
not prudent for them to rebuke the ambition of the prospective
customer.

André lathered the face of the juvenile with as much care as though it
had been that of the parsimonious broker at the corner, who shaved only
when his beard was an eighth of an inch in length. Not satisfied with
this preparatory step, he resorted to the process used for particularly
hard beards, of rubbing the lather in with a towel wet in hot water;
but André did not smile, or by word or deed indicate that all he was
doing was not absolutely necessary in order to give his customer a
clean and an easy shave. Then he stropped his razor with zealous
enthusiasm, making the shop ring with the melody of the thin steel, as
he whipped it back and forth on the long strip of soft leather, one end
of which was nailed to the case, and the other end held in his hand.
The music was doubtless sweet to the listening ears of Mr. Wittleworth,
if not as the prelude of an easy shave, at least as an assurance that
all the customary forms had been scrupulously complied with in his
individual case.

[Illustration: MR. WITTLEWORTH GETS SHAVED.--Page 14.]

Slapping the broad-bladed razor on his soft hand, the barber approached
the young man in the chair. With a graceful movement he brought the
instrument to bear gently on the face.

"Does it pull, Fitz?" asked the tormentor in the next chair.

"Of course not; André always gives a man an easy shave," replied Mr.
Wittleworth.

"Certainly; but some people have tough beards and tender faces."

"If your beard is as soft as your head, it won't hurt you to shave with
a handsaw," retorted Mr. Wittleworth.

The laugh was at the expense of the tormentor, and he retreated from
the shop in the "guffaw," and Fitz was permitted to finish his shave in
peace--in peace, at least, so far as this particular tormentor was
concerned, for a more formidable one assailed him before his departure.
André went over his face with the nicest care; then lathered it again,
and proceeded to give it the finishing touches. He was faithful to the
end, and gave the juvenile patron the benefit of the entire length and
breadth of his art, omitting nothing that could add dignity or
perfection to the operation. It was quite certain that, if there was
anything like an imperceptible down on his face at the commencement of
the process, there was nothing left of it at the end.

Mr. Wittleworth's hair was oiled, moistened with diluted Cologne water,
combed, brushed, parted, and tossed in wavy flakes over his head, and
was as fragrant, glossy, and unctuous as the skill of André could make
it.

"One feels more like a Christian after a clean shave," said Mr.
Wittleworth, as he rose from the chair, and passed his hand approvingly
over his polished chin. "Barbers, good barbers, do a missionary work in
the world."

"What are you doing here, Fitz?" demanded a stern-looking gentleman,
who had just entered the shop, and stepped up behind the juvenile
customer.

"I came in to get shaved," replied Mr. Wittleworth, abashed by the
harsh tones.

"Shaved!" exclaimed Mr. Checkynshaw, the stern-looking gentleman, well
known as the senior partner of the great banking house of Checkynshaw,
Hart, & Co. "Shaved!"

"Yes, sir; I came here to be shaved, and I have been shaved," replied
the young man, trying to assume an air of bravado, though he was
actually trembling in his boots before the lofty and dignified
personage who confronted and confounded him.

"Is this the way you waste your time and your money? I sent you to the
post-office, and you have been gone over half an hour."

"I had to wait for my turn," pleaded Mr. Wittleworth.

"When I send you to the post-office, you will not loiter away your time
in a barber's shop, you conceited puppy. I'll discharge you!"

"Discharge _me_!" exclaimed Mr. Wittleworth, stung by the epithet of
the banker. "I think not, sir."

The young gentleman placed his hat upon his head, canting it over on
one side, so as to give him a saucy and jaunty appearance. Mr.
Checkynshaw, whose clerk, or rather "boy," he was, had often scolded
him, and even abused him, in the private office of the banking-house,
but never before in a place so public as a barber's shop in 'Change
Street, and in 'change hours. He felt outraged by the assault; for Mr.
Wittleworth, as his employer had rather indelicately hinted, had a high
opinion of himself. He straightened himself up, and looked impudent--a
phase in his conduct which the banker had never before observed, and he
stood aghast at this indication of incipient rebellion.

"You think not, you puppy!" exclaimed the banker, stamping his feet
with rage.

"I think not! It wouldn't be a prudent step for you to take," answered
Mr. Wittleworth, stung again by the insulting appellations heaped upon
him. "I know rather too much about your affairs to be cast out so
thoughtlessly."

"I will discharge you this very day!" replied the banker, his teeth set
firmly together.

"I think you will find that the affairs of Messrs. Checkynshaw, Hart, &
Co. will not go on so smoothly without me as they do with me," added
Mr. Wittleworth, as he canted his hat over a little more on one side,
and pulled up his shirt collar.

"Without you!" gasped the banker, confounded by the assumption of his
employee.

"Perhaps you will find it so, after you have done your worst."

"Conceited puppy! I took you into my office out of charity! Go to your
place. Charity can do no more for you."

"If you can afford to discharge me, I can afford to be discharged,"
replied Mr. Wittleworth, as he stroked his chin, and walked out of the
shop.

"The young vagabond!" muttered Mr. Checkynshaw. "I took him to keep his
mother from starving. André," he added, imperiously.

The barber with the effeminate voice and the silky hands turned from
the customer he was shaving, and bowed politely to the magnate of the
house of Checkynshaw, Hart, & Co.

"André, my daughter Elinora goes to a juvenile party this evening, and
wishes you to dress her hair at four o'clock."

"Yes, sir; with Mr. Cutts's permission, I will attend her at that
hour."

Mr. Checkynshaw looked as though Mr. Cutts's permission was not at all
necessary when he desired anything; but Mr. Cutts did not venture to
interpose any obstacle to the wish of a person so influential as the
banker. Mr. Checkynshaw turned to leave, went as far as the door, and
then returned.

"André," he continued, "you spoke to me of a boy of yours."

"My adopted son, sir," replied the barber.

"I don't care whether he is your son, or your adopted son. What sort of
a boy is he?"

"He is a very good boy, sir," answered André.

"Can he read and write?"

"Very well indeed, sir. The master of his school says he will take the
medal at the close of the year."

"I shall discharge that puppy, and I want a good boy in his place. Send
him to me at half past two this afternoon."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Checkynshaw. Perhaps I spoke too soon, sir; but
I did not want a place for him till next vacation."

"Send him up, and I will talk with him," said the banker, imperatively
and patronizingly, as he hurried out of the shop.

He was met at the door by a girl of fifteen, who modestly stepped out
of the way to let the magnate pass. She was dressed very plainly, but
very neatly, and in her hand she carried a tin pail. The loud talk of
the barber's shop politicians and the coarse jests of rude men ceased
as she walked behind the long line of chairs to that where André was at
work. She was rather tall for her age; her face was pretty, and her
form delicately moulded. She was all gentleness and grace, and rude men
were awed by her presence.

André smiled as sweetly as a woman when he saw her, and his eye
followed her as she went to the stove, and placed the pail by its side.

"Maggie, send Leo to me as soon as you go home," said he, in the
softest of his soft tones, as she left the shop.

CHAPTER II.

BOY WANTED.

From the tin kettle, which Maggie had placed by the stove, there arose
an odor of fried sausages--a savory mess to a hungry man, possessed of
a reasonable amount of confidence in the integrity and
conscientiousness of sausage-makers in general. André made himself as
useful as possible to his employers, and they could not well spare him
in the middle of the day to go home to his dinner, for during 'change
hours the shop was full of customers. If there was a lull any time
before three o'clock, he ate the contents of the tin pail; if not, he
dined at a fashionable hour.

André could not well be spared, because there were certain dignified
men, presidents of banks and insurance companies, venerable personages
with a hold upon the last generation, who came from their homes in the
middle of the day to read the newspapers at the "China," or the
"Fireman;" staid old merchants, who had retired from active life, and
went to the counting-room only to look after the junior partners--men
who always shaved down town, and would not let any barber but André
touch their faces. His hand was so soft and silky, his touch so tender
and delicate, and his razors were so keen and skilfully handled, that
he was a favorite in the shop.

Years before, André had set up a shop for himself; but he had no talent
for business, and the experiment was a failure. He was too effeminate
to control his journeymen, and his shop was not well ordered. All his
regular customers insisted on being shaved by André; and, while he paid
the wages of two men, he did all the work himself. The rent and other
expenses overwhelmed him; but he had the good sense to sell out before
he became involved in debt.

There he was, in the shop of Cutts & Stropmore, and there he was likely
to be--a journeyman barber to the end of his mortal pilgrimage. The
highest wages were paid him; but André had no ambition to gratify, and
when one week's wages were due, every cent of the earnings of the
preceding one was invariably used up. If there was a ten-cent piece
left in his pocket on Saturday morning, he took care to spend it for
something to gratify Maggie or Leo before he went to the shop. For this
boy and girl--though they were not his own children, or even of any
blood relation to him--he lived and labored as lovingly and patiently
as though God had blessed him in the paternal tie.

Half an hour after Maggie left the shop there was a brief lull in the
business, and André seized his kettle, and bore it to a kind of closet,
where hair oils, hair washes, and the "Celebrated Capillary Compound"
were concocted. With a sausage in one hand and a penny roll in the
other, he ate as a hungry man eats when the time is short. André's
appetite was good, and thus pleasantly was he employed when Leo, the
barber's adopted son, entered the laboratory of odoriferous compounds.

"Maggie says you want to see me," said Leo.

The boy was dressed as neatly as the barber himself, but in other
respects he was totally unlike him. He had a sharp, bright eye, and his
voice was heavy, and rather guttural, being in the process of changing,
for he was fifteen years old. On the books of the grammar school, where
he was a candidate for the highest honors of the institution, his name
was recorded as Leopold Maggimore. If Leo was his pet name, it was not
because he bore any resemblance to the lion, though he was a bold
fellow, with no little dignity in his expression.

"I sent for you, Leo," replied André, when he had waited long enough
after the entrance of the boy to enable us to describe the youth, and
himself to dispose of the overplus of fried sausage in his mouth, so
that he could utter the words; "Mr. Checkynshaw spoke to me about you.
He wishes to see you at half past two o'clock."

"Mr. Checkynshaw!" exclaimed Leo, wondering what the head of the
well-known banking house could want with an individual so insignificant
as himself.

"He wants a boy."

"Does he want me?"

"I suppose he does."

"But, father, I shall lose my medal if I leave school now," added Leo.

"You must not leave now; but you can see Mr. Checkynshaw, and explain
the matter to him. He is a great man, and when you want a place, he may
be able to help you."

"The cat may look at the king, and I will go and see him; but I don't
see what good it will do. Fitz Wittleworth is there."

"He is to be discharged," quietly added André, as he deposited half a
sausage in his mouth.

"Fitz discharged!" exclaimed Leo, opening his eyes.

"Yes; he has been, or will be to-day."

"But what will the firm of Checkynshaw, Hart, & Co. do without him?
Fitz tells me that he carries on the concern himself."

"Fitz is conceited; and I think the concern will be able to get along
without him."

"But he is some relation to Mr. Checkynshaw."

"I think not; the banker says he took him into his office to keep him
from starving."

"Fitz says Mr. Checkynshaw's first wife was his mother's sister."

"That is not a very near relation, and the banker will not tolerate his
impudence on that account. No matter about that; Mr. Checkynshaw wishes
to see you at half past two. You can tell him about your medal, and
tell him, very respectfully and politely, that you can't leave school.
He may like the looks of you, and help you to a place when you do want
one."

André did not think it would be possible for any one to see Leo without
liking the looks of him; and he was quite sure that he would make a
favorable impression upon even the cold, stern banker. A call-bell on
the case of Mr. Cutts sounded, and André hastened back to the shop,
having only half satisfied the cravings of his hunger. A customer was
already seated in his chair, and he went to work upon him, with his
thoughts still following Leo to the banker's private office. He had
high hopes for that boy. Mr. Cutts had proposed to take him as an
apprentice to the barber's business; but, while André had no ambition
for himself, he had for Leo, and he would not think of such a thing as
permitting him to follow his trade, which, however honorable and useful
did not open to the youth the avenues of fame and fortune.

On this important subject Leo had some views of his own. He certainly
did not wish to be a barber, and he was almost as much opposed to being
a banker or a merchant. He wished to be a carpenter or a machinist. He
was born to be a mechanic, and all his thoughts were in this direction,
though he had not yet decided whether he preferred to work in wood or
in iron. But his foster-father had higher aspirations for him, and Leo
had not the heart to disappoint him, though he continued to hope that,
before the time came for him to commence in earnest the business of
life, he should be able to convince him that the path to fame and
fortune lay in the mechanic arts as well as in commerce and finance.
Leo walked out into State Street, and, by the clock on the old State
House, saw that it was too early to call upon the banker.

Mr. Fitzherbert Wittleworth did not go to the banker's office when
ordered to do so. He went to his mother's house, to tell her that Mr.
Checkynshaw had threatened to discharge him. He had a long talk with
her. She was a sensible woman, and reproved his self-conceit, and
insisted that he should make peace with the powerful man by a humble
apology.

"Mother, you may eat humble pie at the feet of Mr. Checkynshaw, if you
like; I shall not," replied Fitz, as he was familiarly called, though
the brief appellative always galled him, and the way to reach his heart
was to call him _Mr._ Wittleworth.

"If you get turned off, what will become of us? Your father isn't good
for anything, and what both of us can earn is hardly enough to keep us
from starving," answered the poor woman, whose spirit had long before
been broken by poverty, disappointment, and sorrow.

"I would rather starve than have the heel of that man on my neck. I
have done everything I could for the concern. I have worked early and
late, and kept everything up square in the private office; but there is
no more gratitude in that man than there is in a truck horse. He don't
even thank me for it."

"But he pays you wages; and that's enough," replied his more practical
mother.

"That is not enough, especially when he pays me but five dollars a
week. I am worth a thousand dollars a year, at least, to the concern.
Checkynshaw will find that out after he has discharged me," added Mr.
Wittleworth, pulling up his collar, as was his wont when his dignity
was damaged.

"Go back to him; tell him you are sorry for what you said, and ask him
to forgive you," persisted Mrs. Wittleworth. "This is no time for poor
people to be proud. The times are so hard that I made only a dollar
last week, and if you lose your place, we must go to the almshouse."

"What's the use of saying that, mother?" continued the son. "It seems
to me you take pride in talking about our poverty."

"It's nothing but the truth," added Mrs. Wittleworth, wiping the tears
from her pale, thin face, which was becoming paler and thinner every
day, for she toiled far into the night, making shirts at eight cents
apiece. "I have only fifty cents in money left to buy provisions for
the rest of the week."

"Folks will trust you," said Fitz, impatiently.

"I don't want them to trust me, if I am not to have the means of paying
them. It was wrong for you to pay six cents to be shaved; it's silly
and ridiculous, to say nothing of leaving the office for half an hour.
You did wrong, and you ought to acknowledge it."

"Mother, I'm tired of this kind of a life."

"So am I; but we cannot starve," replied the poor woman, bitterly. "It
is harder for me than for you, for I was brought up in plenty and
luxury, and never knew what it was to want for anything till your
father spent all my property, and then became a burden upon me. You
have been a good boy, Fitzherbert, and I hope you will not disappoint
me now."

"I shall do everything I can for you, mother, of course; but it is hard
to be ground down by _that_ man, as I am."

The young gentleman said _that_ man with an emphasis which meant
something.

"I cannot help it," sighed the mother.

"Yes, you can. In my opinion,--and I think I understand the matter as
well as any other man,--in my opinion, Mr. Checkynshaw owes you fifty
thousand dollars, and is keeping you out of your just due. That's what
galls me," added Fitz, rapping the table violently with his fist.

"It may be and it may not be. I don't know."

"I know! That man is not an honest man. I know something about his
affairs, and if he presumes to discharge me, I shall devote some of my
valuable time to the duty of ventilating them."

"Don't you do any such thing, Fitz."

"I will, mother! I will find out whether the money belongs to you or
not," added the young man, decidedly. "I have my private opinion about
the matter. I know enough about Checkynshaw to feel certain that he
wouldn't let fifty thousand dollars slip through his fingers, if by any
trickery he could hold on to it. If he has a daughter in France,
fifteen years old, as she must be, wouldn't she write to him? Wouldn't
he write to her? Wouldn't he go and see her? Wouldn't he send her
money? She don't do it; he don't do it. I do all the post-office
business for the firm, and no such letters go or come."

Mr. Wittleworth was very decided in his "private opinion;" but at last
he so far yielded to the entreaties of his mother as to consent to
return to the office, and if Mr. Checkynshaw wasn't savage, he would
apologize. This he regarded as a great concession, very humiliating,
and to be made only to please his mother.

CHAPTER III.

MR. CHECKYNSHAW IS VIOLENT.

MR. Fitzherbert Wittleworth walked slowly and nervously from his home
to the banking-house in State Street. The situation was just as far
from pleasant as it could be. He did not wish to deprive the family of
the necessaries of life, which were purchased with his meagre salary,
on the one hand, and it was almost impossible to endure the tyranny of
Mr. Checkynshaw on the other hand. To a young man with so high an
opinion of himself as the banker's clerk entertained, the greatest
privation to which he could be subjected was a want of appreciation of
his personal character and valuable services.

The banker had an utter contempt for him personally, and regarded his
salary as high at five dollars a week, which was indeed a high rate for
a young man of sixteen. Mr. Checkynshaw sat in his private office,
adjoining the banking-house, when Mr. Wittleworth presented himself. He
scowled savagely as the young man entered.

"You have concluded to come back--have you?" said he.

"Yes, sir," replied Fitz.

"Well, sir, you have only come to be discharged; for I will no longer
have a stupid and useless blockhead about. I was willing to tolerate
you for your mother's sake; but I won't submit to your impudence."

Stupid and useless blockhead! It was no use to attempt to effect a
reconciliation with a person who had, or professed to have, such an
opinion of him. Not even the strait to which his family was reduced
could justify him in submitting to such abuse.

"Mr. Checkynshaw, I don't allow any man to insult me," Fitz began. "I
have treated you like a gentleman, and I demand as much in return."

"Insult you? Impudent puppy!" gasped Mr. Checkynshaw. "What are we
coming to?"

"You insulted me in a public barber's shop. Not content with that, you
call me a stupid and useless blockhead--_me_, sir."

"No more of this! Take your pay, and be gone! There's five dollars, a
full week's salary for three days' service," added the banker, pushing
a five-dollar bill across the desk towards Fitz.

The young man was not too proud to take it.

"Go! Don't stop here another minute," said the wrathy banker, glancing
at the clock, which now indicated the time he had appointed for the
coming of Leo Maggimore.

"I am not ready to go just yet. I have a demand to make upon you. You
have defrauded my mother out of a fortune."

"That will do! Not another word," said Mr. Checkynshaw, turning red in
the face.

"My mother will take steps to obtain her rights."

"Will you go?" demanded the banker.

"No, sir. I will not till I have said what I have to say. You shall
either prove that your first daughter is alive, or you shall deliver to
my mother the property."

Mr. Checkynshaw could not endure such speech as this from any man, much
less from his discharged clerk. He rose from his chair, and rushed upon
the slender youth with a fury worthy a more stalwart foe. Grasping him
by the collar, he dragged him out of the private office, through the
long entry, to the street, and then pitched him far out upon the
sidewalk. As he passed through the entry, Leo Maggimore was going into
the banking-office. Not knowing the way, he inquired of a person he met
in the long hall.

Leo did not know the banker, and was not aware that the excited
gentleman he had seen was he; and he did not recognize Fitz in the
young man who was so violently hurried before him. He followed the
direction given him, and reached the private office of the banker.
Through an open window he saw the clerks and cashiers rushing to the
door to witness the extraordinary scene that was transpiring in the
street. Taking off his cap, he waited for the appearance of Mr.
Checkynshaw, who, he supposed, had also gone to "see the fun." As he
stood there, a jaunty-looking individual hastily entered the office.

"What do you want?" asked this person.

"I want to see Mr. Checkynshaw," replied Leo.

"Go through that door, and you will find him," added the jaunty-looking
man, in hurried tones.

Leo, supposing the man belonged there, did as he was directed, and
inquired of an elderly clerk, who had not left his desk, for the
banker. He was told to wait in the private office, and he returned, as
he was bidden.

He found the jaunty-looking person taking some papers from the safe. He
put a quantity of them into the pockets of his overcoat, locked the
heavy iron door, and took out the key.

"Mr. Checkynshaw won't be here again to-day. You will have to call
to-morrow," said the man, in sharp and decided business tones.

"He sent for me to come to-day at half past two," replied Leo.

"He was unexpectedly called away; come again to-morrow at this time,"
added the jaunty person, briskly.

"I can't come to-morrow at this hour; school keeps."

"Come at one, then," replied the business man, who did not seem to care
whether school kept or not.

"Will you tell him, sir, that I came as he wished, and will call again
at one to-morrow?"

"Yes, yes. I will tell him all about it," answered the brisk personage,
as he took a small carpet-bag in his hand, and led the way out through
the banking-room.

The clerks had returned to their desks, and were again busy over their
books and papers; for the excitement had subsided, and people went
their way as though nothing had happened. The unwonted scene of a man
in Mr. Checkynshaw's position putting a clerk out of his office excited
a little comment, and the banker had stopped in the long hall to
explain to a bank president the occasion of his prompt and decisive
action. Leo and the jaunty man passed him as they left the building;
but the boy did not know him from Adam.

"Where do you live, my boy?" asked the jaunty man, coming up to him
when he had crossed State and entered Congress Street.

"No. 3 Phillimore Court," replied Leo.

He had before lost sight of the man, who, he had already concluded,
from finding him in the private office and at the safe, was one of the
partners in the house of Checkynshaw, Hart, & Co. He could not imagine
what a person of so much importance could want of him, or how it
concerned him to know where he lived.

"Is it far from here?"

"Not very far."

"I want the use of a room for five minutes, to change my clothes. I
live out of town, and am going to New York to-night. Perhaps your
mother would let me have a room for a short time," added the person.

"I haven't any mother; but you can have my room as long as you like,"
answered Leo, glad to accommodate so important a person. "It isn't a
very nice one."

"Nice enough for me. How far is it?"

"Close by High Street; but it's right on your way to the cars."

"Very well; thank you. I'm much obliged to you. If it's far off, I can
run up to a hotel, for I'm in a hurry. I have no time to spare."

The jaunty man walked at a rapid pace, and seemed to be greatly
excited, which Leo attributed to his proposed journey, or to the
pressure of his business.

"Do you know Mr. Checkynshaw?" asked the man of business.

"No, sir; I never saw him in my life, that I know of," replied Leo.
"You are one of the partners--are you not?"

"Yes," replied the jaunty man, promptly.

"Are you Mr. Hart, sir?"

"That is my name. How did you know me?"

"I didn't know you; but I guessed it was Mr. Hart."

They hurried along in silence for a few moments more. Leo was thinking,
just then, how it would be possible for Mr. Hart to tell Mr.
Checkynshaw that he had called that day, and that he would call at one
the next day, if he was going to New York by the afternoon train. He
was quite sure Mr. Hart could not get back in time to tell the banker
that he had obeyed his mandate. He was a little perplexed, and he was
afraid the mighty man would be angry with him for not keeping the
appointment, and perhaps visit the neglect upon his foster-father.
Being unable to solve the problem himself, he ventured to ask Mr. Hart
for a solution.

"It won't make any difference. Mr. Checkynshaw will not think of the
matter again till he sees you to-morrow," replied Mr. Hart. "He will
have enough to think of when he gets to the office to-morrow without
troubling his head about you."

"Perhaps, as you are his partner, Mr. Hart, you can do the business
just as well," said Leo.

"Very likely I can. What did Mr. Checkynshaw want of you?" asked the
partner.

"He is going to discharge Fitz, and--"

"Discharge Fitz! What is that for?" demanded Mr. Hart, as if very much
astonished at the intelligence.

"I don't exactly understand what for; but he wants me to come in his
place; or at least he wants to see me about coming."

"Well, you seem to be a very likely young fellow, and I have no doubt
you will suit us. I am willing to engage you, even after what little I
have seen of you."

"But I can't go yet, Mr. Hart," interposed Leo.

"Why not? When can you come?"

"I can't go till the first of August; that's what I wanted to tell Mr.
Checkynshaw. He was so kind as to think of me when he wanted a boy; and
I want to have it made all right with him. I expect to take one of the
Franklin medals at the next exhibition, and if I leave now I shall lose
it."

"That's right, my boy; stick to your school, and I will see that you
have a first-rate place when you have taken the medal. Haven't we got
most to your house?"

"Just round the corner, sir. I'm afraid Mr. Checkynshaw will not like
it because he did not see me this afternoon."

"He was out, and it isn't your fault; but I will tell him all about it
when I come back, and he will not think of it again."

"But he wants a boy."

"Well, he can find a hundred of them in an hour's time; and, as you
can't take the place, it will make no difference to you. I will make it
all right with him so far as you are concerned."

"This is my house," said Leo, when they reached the dwelling at No. 3
Phillimore Court.

Leo opened the front door,--which was indeed the only door,--and led
the banker to his own room on the second floor. The gentleman closed
the door, and as there was no lock upon it, he placed a chair against
it to serve as a fastening. He did not appear to be in a very great
hurry now, and it was evident that he did not intend to change his
clothes; for, instead of doing so, he took from the pockets of his
overcoat the papers and packages he had removed from the safe. He broke
the seals on some of the parcels, and opened the papers they contained.
He did not stop to read any of them. In a bank book he found a package
of bank notes.

"Three hundred and fifty dollars," muttered he, as he counted the
money. "A mean haul!"

He examined all the papers, but no more money was discovered. The
jaunty man looked as though he was sorely disappointed. He gathered up
the papers, rolled them together, and then looked about the little
chamber. On one side of it there was a painted chest, which contained
Leo's rather scanty wardrobe. He raised the lid, and thrust the bundle
of papers down to the bottom of it, burying them beneath the boy's
summer clothing. Closing the chest, he took his carpet-bag, and left
the room. Leo was waiting for him in the entry; but "Mr. Hart" was
again in a hurry, and could not do anything more than say again he
would make it all right with Mr. Checkynshaw.

Probably he did not keep his promise.

CHAPTER IV.

MR. CHECKYNSHAW RUSHES.

Mr. Checkynshaw felt that he had fully vindicated his personal dignity,
and that of the well-known house whose head he was. The bank president
he met in the entry did not think so, but believed that a person of
such eminent gravity ought to call a policeman, instead of making
himself ridiculous by resorting to violence. The banker explained, and
then returned to his office. He was alone; and, seating himself in his
cushioned chair, he gave himself up to the reflections of the moment,
whatever they were.

Whether the grave charges and the angry threats of Mr. Fitzherbert
Wittleworth were the subject of his thoughts was known only to himself;
but as he reflected, the muscles of his mouth moved about, his brow
contracted, and he seemed to be mentally defending himself from the
charges, and repelling the threats. Certainly the bold accusation of
the banker's late clerk had produced an impression, and stirred up the
anger of the great man; but it was very impolitic for the discharged
clerk to "beard the lion in his den."

The safe in the private office contained the valuable papers of the
banker, while those of the firm whose head he was were placed in the
vaults of the great banking-room. He kept the key of this safe himself.
If it ever went into the hands of the clerk, it was only to bring it
from the lock-drawer in the vaults; he was never trusted to deposit it
there. Mr. Checkynshaw did not look at the safe till he had thoroughly
digested the affair which had just transpired. When he was ready to go
home to dinner, just before three o'clock, he went to the safe to lock
it, and secure the key where prying curiosity could not obtain it.

It was not in the door, where he had left it; but this did not startle
him. His thoughts appeared to be still abstracted by the subject which
had occupied them since the affray, and he was walking mechanically
about the office. He went to the safe as much from the force of habit
as for any reason, for he always secured it when he was about to leave.

"Charles!" he called, raising one of the ground-glass windows between
the office and the banking-room.

The door opened, and one of the younger clerks presented himself.

"Bring me the key of this safe from the drawer in the vault."

Charles bowed, and Mr. Checkynshaw continued to walk back and forth,
absorbed in thought.

"The key of the safe is not in the drawer, sir," replied the clerk.

The banker tried the safe door, and then felt in all his pockets. The
safe was locked, but he had not the key. He went to the vault himself,
but with no better success than the clerk had had.

"The puppy!" muttered the banker. "He has stolen that key!"

Mr. Checkynshaw's lips were compressed, and his teeth were set tight
together. He paced the room more rapidly than before.

"Fudge!" exclaimed he, after he had worked himself into a state of
partial frenzy, as the hard muscles of his face suddenly relaxed, and
something like a smile rested upon his lips. "He couldn't have done
it."

Certainly not. The banker had not opened the safe till after his return
from the barber's shop, where he had reproved his clerk, and Fitz did
not go near the safe during the sharp interview in the office.

"Burnet," said the banker, going to the open window.

This time the elderly man, to whom Leo Maggimore had applied, presented
himself.

"Have you seen the key of my safe?" demanded Mr. Checkynshaw.

"No, sir."

"Where is it, then?"

"I do not know, sir," replied Burnet, whose communications were always
"yea, yea; nay, nay."

"I have discharged Fitz."

Burnet bowed.

"He was saucy."

Burnet bowed again.

"I kicked him out for his impudence."

Burnet bowed a third time.

"My key is gone."

Burnet waited.

"But the safe is locked."

Burnet glanced at the safe.

"Who has been in my office?"

"A boy, sir."

"Who?"

"I don't know, sir; he asked for you. I sent him to your office."

"That was the barber's boy."

Burnet bowed: he never wasted words; never left his desk to see a row
or a military company, and would not have done so if an earthquake had
torn up the pavement of State Street, so long as the banking-house of
Checkynshaw, Hart, & Co. was undisturbed.

"Who else?" asked the banker.

"A man, sir."

"Who?"

"I don't know; he entered by your private door; the boy and the man
went out together."

"Send for the safe people."

Burnet bowed, and retired. In half an hour two men from the safe
manufactory appeared. They opened the iron door, and the banker turned
pale when he found that his valuable papers had been abstracted. The
three hundred and fifty dollars which "Mr. Hart" had taken was of no
consequence, compared with the documents that were missing; for they
were his private papers, on which other eyes than his own must not
look.

The safe men fitted a new key, altering the wards of the lock, so that
the old one would not open the door. What remained of the papers were
secured; but those that were gone were of more importance than those
that were left. Mr. Checkynshaw groaned in spirit. The threats of Mr.
Fitzherbert Wittleworth seemed to have some weight now, and that young
gentleman suddenly became of more consequence than he had ever been
before. Fitz could not have stolen these papers himself, but he might
have been a party to the act.

"Burnet!" called the banker.

The old clerk came again. Nothing ever excited or disturbed him, and
that was what made him so reliable as a financial clerk and cashier. He
never made any mistakes, never overpaid any one, and his cash always
"balanced."

"What shall I do? My private papers have been stolen!" said the banker,
nervously. "Who was the man that came out of the office?"

"I don't know, sir."

"What was he like?" demanded Mr. Checkynshaw, impatiently.

"Well-dressed, rowdyish, foppish."

"And the boy?"

"Fourteen or fifteen--looked well."

"Send for André Maggimore, the barber."

Burnet bowed and retired. Charles was sent to the saloon of Cutts &
Stropmore; but it was four o'clock, and André had gone to dress the
hair of Elinora Checkynshaw. The banker was annoyed, vexed, angry. He
wanted to see the boy who had left the office with the man
"well-dressed, rowdyish, foppish." He did not know where Leo lived, and
the barber had no business to be where he could not put his hand on him
when wanted. Impatiently he drew on his overcoat, rushed out of the
office, and rushed into the shop of Cutts & Stropmore. Mr. Cutts did
not know where André lived, and Mr. Stropmore did not know. André was
always at the shop when he was wanted there, and they had no occasion
to know where he lived. Probably they had known; if they had, they had
forgotten. It was somewhere in High Street, or in some street or court
that led out of High Street, or somewhere near High Street; at any
rate, High Street was in the direction.

There was nothing in this very definite information that afforded Mr.
Checkynshaw a grain of comfort. He was excited; but, without telling
the barbers what the matter was, he rushed up State Street, up Court
Street, up Pemberton Square, to his residence. He wanted a carriage;
but of course there was no carriage within hailing distance, just
because he happened to want one. He reached his home out of breath; but
then his key to the night-latch would not fit, just because he was
excited and in a hurry.

He rang the bell furiously. Lawrence, the man servant, was eating his
dinner, and he stopped to finish his pudding. The banker rang again;
but Lawrence, concluding the person at the door was a pedler, with
needles or a new invention to sell, finished the pudding--pedlers ring
with so much more unction than other people. The banker rang again.
Fortunately for the banker, more fortunately for himself, Lawrence had
completely disposed of the pudding, and went to the door.

"What are you about, you blockhead? Why don't you open the door when I
ring?" stormed the banker.

"I think the bell must be out of order, sir," pleaded Lawrence, who had
heard it every time it rang.

"Go and get a carriage, quick! If you are gone five minutes I'll
discharge you!" added the great man, fiercely, as he rushed into the
parlor.

"You are late to dinner," said Mrs. Checkynshaw.

"Don't talk to me about dinner! Where is Elinora?"

"Why, what is the matter?" asked the lady, not a little alarmed by the
violent manner of the husband.

"Matter enough! Where is Elinora? Answer me, and don't be all day about
it!"

"In her dressing-room. André, the hair-dresser, is with her."

Mr. Checkynshaw rushed up stairs, and rushed into the apartment where
André was curling the hair of a pale, but rather pretty young lady of
twelve. His abrupt appearance and his violent movements startled the
nervous miss, so that, in turning her head suddenly, she brought one of
her ears into contact with the hot curling-tongs with which the barber
was operating upon her flowing locks.

"O, dear! Mercy! You have killed me, André!" screamed Elinora, as her
father bolted into the room.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Checkynshaw," pleaded André.

"You have burned me to death! How you frightened me, pa!" gasped the
young lady.

"Mind what you are about, André!" exclaimed the banker, sternly, as he
examined the ear, which was not badly damaged.

"The young lady moved her head suddenly. It was really not my fault,
sir," added André.

"Yes, it was your fault, André," replied Elinora, petulantly. "You mean
to burn me to death."

"I assure you, mademoiselle--"

"Where do you live, André?" demanded the banker, interrupting him.

"Phillimore Court, No. 3," replied the barber.

"I want you to go there with me at once," bustled the banker. "Is your
boy--What's his name?"

"Leo, sir."

"Leo. Is he at home?"

"I think he is. Do you wish to see him, sir?"

"I do. Come with me, and be quick!"

"Leo would not be able to serve you, sir; he cannot leave his school."

"I want to see him; my safe has been robbed, and your boy was with the
man who did it."

"Leo!" gasped the barber, dropping his hot iron upon the floor, and
starting back, as though a bolt of lightning had blasted him.

"Yes; but come along! I tell you I'm in a hurry!" snapped Mr.
Checkynshaw.

"He can't go now, pa," interposed the daughter. "He must finish
dressing my hair."

"He shall return in a short time, Elinora," replied the banker.

"He shall not go!" added she, decidedly, and with an emphasis worthy of
an only daughter.

"Leo!" murmured the poor barber, apparently crushed by the terrible
charge against the boy.

"No. 3 Phillimore Court, you say," continued the banker, as he moved
towards the door, yielding to the whim of the spoiled child.

The barber did not answer. His eyes rolled up in his head; he staggered
and fell upon the floor. Elinora shrieked in terror, and was hurried
from the room by her father.

CHAPTER V.

LEO MAGGIMORE.

Andre Maggimore had an apoplectic fit. Perhaps the immense dinner he
had eaten in the shop had some connection with his malady; but the
shock he received when the banker told him that Leo was implicated in
the robbery of the safe was the immediate exciting cause. André was a
great eater, and took but little exercise in the open air, and was
probably predisposed to the disease. The dark shadow of trouble which
the banker's words foreboded disturbed the circulation, and hastened
what might otherwise have been longer retarded.

Doubtless Mr. Checkynshaw thought it was very inconsiderate in André
Maggimore to have an attack of apoplexy in his house, in the presence
of his nervous daughter, and especially when he was in such a hurry to
ascertain what had become of his valuable private papers. If the banker
was excited before, he was desperate now. He rang the bells furiously,
and used some strong expressions because the servants did not appear as
soon as they were summoned.

Lawrence had gone for the carriage, and one of the female servants was
sent for the doctor. Mr. Checkynshaw handed his daughter over to her
mother, who also thought it was very stupid for the barber to have a
fit before such a nervous miss as Elinora. The banker returned to the
room in which André lay. He turned him over, and wished he was anywhere
but in his house, which was no place for a sick barber. But the doctor
immediately came to his relief. He examined the patient; André might
live, and might die--a valuable opinion; but the wisest man could have
said no more.

Mr. Checkynshaw could not afford to be bothered by the affair any
longer. He had pressing business on his hands. He directed the doctor
to do all that was necessary, and to have his patient removed to his
own residence as soon as practicable. After assuring himself that
Elinora had neither been burned to death nor frightened to death, he
stepped into the carriage, and ordered the driver to take him to No. 3
Phillimore Court.

The banker was very much annoyed by the awkwardness of the
circumstances. He judged from what André had said, that he was much
attached to his foster-son, and he concluded that Leo was equally
interested in his foster-father. It was not pleasant to tell the boy
that the barber had fallen in a fit, and might die from the effects of
it; and if he did, Leo might not be able to give him the information he
needed. It would confuse his mind, and overwhelm him with grief. Mr.
Checkynshaw could not see why poor people should grieve at the sickness
or death of their friends, though it was a fact they did so, just like
rich people of sensibility and cultivation.

He thought of this matter as the driver, in obedience to his mandate,
hurried him to Phillimore Court. If he told Leo, there would be an
awkward scene, and he would be expected to comfort the poor boy,
instead of worming out of him the dry facts of the robbery. If he had
ever heard of Maggie, he had forgotten all about her. Had he thought of
her, the circumstances would have appeared still more awkward. He had
already decided not to inform Leo of the sudden illness of his father.
When he reached the humble abode of the barber, and his summons at the
door was answered by the fair Maggie, he was the more determined not to
speak of the calamity which had befallen them.

Leo was at home; but it would be disagreeable to examine him in his own
house, and in the presence of Maggie. He changed his tactics at once,
and desired the boy to ride up to his office with him. Leo wondered
what Mr. Checkynshaw could want of him at that time of day. It was
strange that a person of his consequence had thought of him at all; and
even "Mr. Hart" had proved to be a false prophet. He concluded that the
banker had discharged Fitz, and needed a boy at once; but the gentleman
was too imperative to be denied, and Leo did not venture to object to
anything he proposed. He followed the great man into the carriage, and
regarded it as a piece of condescension on his part to permit a poor
boy like him to ride in the same vehicle with him.

Mr. Checkynshaw did not speak till the carriage stopped before the
banking-house in State Street; and Leo was too much abashed by the
lofty presence of the great man to ask any question, or to open the
subject which he supposed was to be discussed in the private office. He
followed the banker into that apartment, thinking only of the manner in
which he should decline to enter the service of his intended employer
before the completion of his school year.

"Burnet," said Mr. Checkynshaw, opening the window of the banking-room.

The old cashier entered, and bowed deferentially to the head of the
house.

"Send for Mr. Clapp," added the banker; and Burnet bowed and retired,
like an approved courtier.

Leo was not at all familiar with the police records, and had not
learned that Mr. Clapp was the well-known constable,--the "Old Reed" or
the "Old Hayes" of his day and generation,--and the name had no terrors
to him.

"Boy, what is your name?" demanded Mr. Checkynshaw, when the door had
closed behind the cashier.

"Leopold Maggimore, sir," replied he.

"Leopold," repeated the banker.

"I am generally called Leo, sir."

"Did the barber--your father, if he is your father--send you to my
office to-day?"

"Yes, sir; he sent me, and I came; but you were not in."

"Why didn't you wait for me?"

"I was told you would not be back again to-day, sir."

"What time were you here?"

"At half past two, sir. There was some trouble in the entry at the
time. A gentleman had a young fellow by the collar, and was putting him
out of the building."

"Just so. Who was the gentleman?"

"I don't know, sir; I didn't see his face."

"I was that gentleman."

"I didn't know it, sir. It was just half past two, and I wanted to be
on time."

"Who told you I should not be back again?" demanded the banker more
sternly than he had before spoken.

"Mr. Hart," replied Leo, who regarded his informant as excellent
authority.

"Mr. Hart!" exclaimed Mr. Checkynshaw, staring into the bright eyes of
Leo to detect any appearance of deception.

The banker prided himself upon his shrewdness. He believed that, if
there was any person in the world who was peculiarly qualified to
expose the roguery of a suspected individual, he was that person. In
conducting the present examination he only wanted Derastus Clapp for
the terror of his name, rather than his professional skill as a
detective.

Mr. Checkynshaw believed that he had intrapped his victim. Mr. Hart
could not have told Leo that the head of the house would not return to
the office that day, for the very simple reason that Mr. Hart was dead
and gone. The old style of the firm was retained, but the Hart was gone
out of it. The boy was telling a wrong story, and the banker laid his
toils for unveiling the details of a gigantic conspiracy. Fitz lived
somewhere in the vicinity of High Street,--Mr. Checkynshaw did not know
where, for it would not be dignified for a great man like him to know
where his clerk resided,--and it was more than possible that Leo and he
were acquainted. Very likely the innocent-looking youth before him was
an accomplice of Fitz, who, since the disappearance of the papers, had
really become a terrible character.

"Yes, sir; Mr. Hart told me," repeated Leo, who could not see anything
so very strange in the circumstance.

"Mr. Hart told you!" said the banker, again, endeavoring to overwhelm
the boy by the intensity of his gaze.

"Yes, sir, Mr. Hart."

"Was Mr. Hart in this office?"

"Yes, sir."

"What was Mr. Hart doing?"

"He wasn't doing anything. I was standing here waiting for you when he
came in."

"Which way did he come in?" interrupted the banker.

"The same way we did just now," added Leo, pointing to the door which
opened into the long entry.

"Very well; go on."

"He told me to go into the big room," continued Leo, pointing to the
banking-room. "I went in there, and asked the man that just came in
here for you."

"You asked Burnet for me?"

"I didn't know what his name was; but it was the man you just called in
here."

"Burnet; go on."

"He told me to come in here and wait for you."

"Burnet told you so?"

"Yes, sir; and when I came back, Mr. Hart was taking some papers and
things from that safe, and putting them in the pocket of his overcoat.
Then he locked the safe, and put the key in his pocket."

"Go on," said Mr. Checkynshaw, excited by these details.

"Then Mr. Hart told me Mr. Checkynshaw would not be in again to-day,
and I must come again to-morrow."

"What then?"

"I went out through the big room, and he came right after me."

Leo, without knowing why he was required to do so, described in full
all that had taken place after he left the banking-room till "Mr. Hart"
had changed his clothes, and left the house of André.

"How did you know this person was Mr. Hart?" asked the banker.

"He told me so, sir. I asked him before we got to my house if he was
Mr. Hart, and he said he was. When he told me Mr. Checkynshaw was not
in, and I saw him take the things out of the safe, and put the key in
his pocket, I knew he belonged here, and being in this office, I
guessed it was Mr. Hart. He promised to get me a good place when I
leave school, and to explain the matter to you, and make it all right,
when he came back from New York."

"Perhaps he will do so," added Mr. Checkynshaw, with a sneer.

But the banker was completely "nonplussed." He found it difficult to
believe that this boy had anything to do with the robbery of his safe.
At this point in the investigation, Mr. Clapp arrived. It was now quite
dark. Most of the clerks in the banking-room had left; but Burnet was
called, and instructed to remain with Leo, while the banker and the
detective held a conference in the next room. Leo could not tell what
it was all about. Not a word had been said about a boy to fill Fitz's
place. He asked Burnet what Mr. Checkynshaw wanted of him; but the
cashier was dumb.

After the banker had told the officer all about the affair, they went
into the private office, and Leo was subjected to a long and severe
questioning. Then he learned that "Mr. Hart" was not Mr. Hart, and that
the safe had been plundered. He was filled with astonishment, not to
say horror; but every answer he gave was straightforward, and at the
end of it the skilled detective declared that he had had nothing to do
with the robbery.

"Do you know Fitz Wittleworth?" demanded Mr. Checkynshaw, sharply.

"Yes, sir."

"Did he ever say anything to you about me?"

"I have heard him call you Old Checkynshaw; but he never said anything
that I can remember, except that you couldn't get along in your
business without him."

"Did he ever say anything about any papers of mine?" asked the banker,
scowling fiercely.

"No, sir."

The banker plied Leo with questions in this direction; but he failed to
elicit anything which confirmed his fears. A carriage was called, and
Mr. Checkynshaw and the constable, taking Leo with them, were driven to
the house of the barber.

CHAPTER VI.

LEO'S WORKSHOP.

When the banker and the detective reached the barber's house, the
supper table was waiting for André and Leo. Perhaps Mr. Checkynshaw
wondered how even a poor man could live in such a small house, with
such "little bits of rooms." It had been built to fill a corner, and it
fitted very snugly in its place. André thought it was the nicest house
in Boston, and for many years it had been a palace to him.

It contained only four rooms, two on each floor. The two rooms up
stairs were appropriated to the use of Maggie and Leo. The front room
down stairs was required to do double duty, as a parlor, and a
sleeping-room for André; but the bedstead was folded up into a
secretary during the day. In the rear of this was the "living room." In
the winter the parlor was not used, for the slender income of the
barber would not permit him to keep two fires. In this apartment, which
served as a kitchen, dining and sitting room, was spread the table
which waited for André and Leo.

The barber almost always came home before six o'clock; for, in the
vicinity of State Street, all is quiet at this hour, and the shop was
closed. Maggie sat before the stove, wondering why André did not come;
but she was not alarmed at his non-appearance, for occasionally he was
called away to dress a lady's hair, or to render other "professional"
service at the houses of the customers. Certainly she had no suspicion
of the fearful truth.

She was rather startled when the unexpected visitors were ushered into
the room by Leo; but the detective was gentle as a lamb, and even the
banker, in the presence of one so fair and winning as Maggie, was not
disposed to be rude or rough. Mr. Clapp asked some questions about the
man who had come to the house that afternoon, and gone up to Leo's
room. She had seen him, and her description of his appearance and his
movements did not differ from that of her brother. No new light was
obtained; but Mr. Clapp desired to visit the apartment which "Mr. Hart"
had used.

Leo conducted the visitors to this room. It was possible, if the robber
had changed his clothes there, that he had left something which might
afford some clew to his identity. The detective searched the chamber,
but not very carefully. As he did so, he told Leo that he desired to
clear him from any connection with the crime.

"I hadn't anything to do with it, and I don't know anything about the
man," replied Leo, blushing deeply.

"I don't think you had, my boy," added the officer, candidly. "But this
man may have hidden something in the house, without your knowledge."

"I hope you will find it if he did. You may search the house from
cellar to garret, if you like; but he didn't go into any room but this
one."

"How long was he in this room?"

"Not more than twenty minutes, I guess; I don't know."

"Where were you while he was here?"

"I was down cellar."

"Down cellar!" exclaimed Mr. Checkynshaw. "All the time he was in the
room?"

"Yes, sir."

"What were you doing there?"

"I was at work there. When I heard Mr. Hart, or the man, whatever his
name is, coming down stairs, I went up and met him in the entry. You
can go down cellar, if you like."

"I think we will," said Mr. Checkynshaw.

The detective looked into the bed, under it, in the closets, drawers,
and into the seaman's chest which contained Leo's wardrobe. He did not
expect to find anything, and his search was not very thorough. He
examined the till, and felt in the clothing; but he did not put his
hand down deep enough to find the papers the robber had deposited
there. If the rogue had left anything, he had no object in concealing
it; and Mr. Clapp reasoned that he would be more likely to leave it in
sight than to hide it.

When the search had been finished in the room, and the result was as
the detective anticipated, Leo led the way to the cellar. Here was
presented to the visitors a complete revelation of the boy's character
and tastes--a revelation which assured the skilful detective, deeply
versed as he was in a knowledge of human nature, that Leo was not a boy
to be in league with bad men, or knowingly to assist a robber in
disposing of his ill-gotten booty.

The cellar or basement was only partly under ground, and there was room
enough for two pretty large windows at each end, the front and rear of
the house, and in the daytime the apartment was as light and cheerful
as the rooms up stairs. Across the end, under the front windows, was a
workbench, with a variety of carpenter's tools, few in number, and of
the most useful kind. On the bench was an unfinished piece of work,
whose intended use would have puzzled a philosopher, if several similar
specimens of mechanism, completed and practically applied, had not
appeared in the cellar to explain the problem.

On the wall of the basement, and on a post in the centre of it,
supported by brackets, were half a dozen queer little structures,
something like miniature houses, all of them occupied by, and some of
them swarming with, _white mice_. In the construction of these houses,
or, as André facetiously called them, "_Les Palais des Mice_," Leo
displayed a great deal of skill and ingenuity. He was a natural-born
carpenter, with inventive powers of a high order. He not only made them
neatly and nicely, but he designed them, making regular working plans
for their construction.

The largest of them was about three feet long. At each end of a board
of this length, and fifteen inches in width, was a box or house, seven
inches deep, to contain the retiring rooms and nests of the occupants
of the establishment. Each of these houses was three stories high, and
each story contained four apartments, or twenty-four in the whole
palace. The space between the two houses was open in front, leaving an
area of twenty-two by fifteen inches for a playground, or grand parade,
for the mice. The three sides of this middle space were filled with
shelves or galleries, from which opened the doors leading into the
private apartments. The galleries were reached by inclined planes, cut
like steps.

Monsieur Souris Blanc passed from the gallery into one room, and from
this apartment to another, which had no exterior door, thus securing
greater privacy, though on the outside was a slide by which the curious
proprietor of the palace could investigate the affairs of the family.
Madame Souris Blanche, who considerately added from four to a dozen
little ones to the population of the colony every three or four weeks,
apparently approved this arrangement of rooms, though it was observed
that three or four mothers, notwithstanding the multiplicity of
strictly private apartments, would bring up their families in the same
nest, cuddled up in the same mass of cotton wool.

Over the "grand parade" was a roof, which prevented the mice from
getting out over the tops of the nest-houses. Though this space was
open in front, and the play-ground protected only by a fence an inch
high, the little creatures seldom fell out, for it was five feet to the
floor of the cellar, and this was a giddy height for them to look down.

This establishment contained fifty or sixty white mice--from the
venerable grandfather and grandmother down to the little juveniles two
weeks old, to say nothing of sundry little ones which had not appeared
on the "grand parade," and which looked like bits of beef, or more like
pieces of a large fish worm. Other establishments on the wall contained
smaller numbers; and, though it was impossible to count them, there
were not less than a hundred and fifty white mice in the basement.

When Leo conducted the visitors to the cellar, all the tribes of mice
were in the highest enjoyment of colonial and domestic bliss. Though
most of them scampered to their lairs when the gentlemen appeared, they
returned in a moment, looked at the strangers, snuffed and stared, and
then went to work upon the buckwheat and canary seed, which Leo gave
them as a special treat. Squatting on their hind legs, they picked up
grains or seeds, and holding them in their fore paws, like squirrels,
picked out the kernels.

[Illustration: LEO'S WORKSHOP.--Page 76.]

In other houses, they were chasing each other along the galleries,
performing various gymnastics on the apparatus provided for the
purpose, or revolving in the whirligigs that some of the cages
contained. It was after dark; and, having reposed during the day, they
were full of life and spirit at night. The detective was delighted, and
even Mr. Checkynshaw for a few moments forgot that his valuable papers
had been stolen. Both of them gazed with interest at the cunning
movements and the agile performances of the little creatures.

"I see why you remained down cellar so long," said the detective, with
a smile.

"I was at work on that mouse-house," replied Leo, pointing to the
bench.

The palace in process of construction was somewhat different from the
others. Instead of being open in front of the "grand parade," it had a
glass door, so that the occupants of the establishment could be seen,
but could not fall out.

"What is that one for?" asked Mr. Clapp.

"I'm making that for Mr. Stropmore," answered Leo. "I gave him one lot,
but his cat killed them all. The cat can't get at them in this house,
and they can't fall out."

"Elinora would like to see them," said Mr. Checkynshaw, graciously.

"I should be very glad to show them to her, or to give her as many of
them as she wants," replied Leo.

"Perhaps she will come and see them. But, Mr. Clapp, we must attend to
business."

The detective was in no hurry to attend to business, so interested was
he in the performances of the mice. He was quite satisfied that a boy
whose thoughts were occupied as Leo's were could not be implicated in
the robbery. The banker led the way up stairs, and Leo was questioned
again. He described the rogue once more, and was sure he should know
him if he saw him again. The banker said he would call and see Mrs.
Wittleworth and her son, while the detective was to take the night
train for New York, where "Mr. Hart" was supposed to have gone. The
officer, who knew all the rogues, was confident, from the description,
that the thief was "Pilky Wayne," a noted "confidence man." The theft
was according to his method of operation.

"Where do you suppose father is?" asked Maggie, as Leo was about to
leave the house to show Mr. Checkynshaw where Mrs. Wittleworth lived.
"It is after seven o'clock, and he is never so late as this."

"I don't know," replied Leo. "I haven't seen him since one o'clock."

The banker was disturbed by the question. It would be annoying to tell
such a pretty and interesting young lady, poor girl though she was,
that her father was very ill. It would make a "scene," and he would be
expected to comfort her in her great grief.

"Your father--Is he your father, miss?" asked he, doubtfully.

"He is just the same. He adopted both Leo and me," replied Maggie.

"He went to my house, this afternoon, to dress my daughter's hair,"
added Mr. Checkynshaw; and there was something in his manner which
disturbed the fair girl.

"Is he there now?"

"Yes, I think he is. My people will take good care of him."

"Why, what do you mean, sir?" demanded Maggie. "Take good care of him?"

"He had an ill turn this afternoon."

"My father!" exclaimed Maggie.

"I sent for the doctor, and he has had good care," added the banker, as
soothingly as he could speak, which, however, was not saying much.

"What ails him?"

"Well, it was an attack of apoplexy, paralysis, or something of that
kind."

"My poor father!" ejaculated Maggie, her eyes filling with tears. "I
must go to him at once."

Maggie took down her cloak and hood, and put them on.

CHAPTER VII.

MON PERE.

Maggie's ideas of apoplexy or paralysis were not very definite, and she
only understood that something very terrible had happened to her
foster-father, whom she loved as though he had been her real parent.
Leo was hardly less affected, though, being a boy, his susceptibility
was not so keen. His first feeling was one of indignation that the
banker had not told him before of the misfortune which had overtaken
the family. It was cruel to have kept Maggie from her father a single
moment longer than was necessary.

"Where is poor father now?" asked Maggie, as she adjusted her hood, and
wiped the tears from her eyes.

"He is at my house; but you need not worry about him," replied Mr.
Checkynshaw. "The doctor has attended to his case, and he shall have
everything he needs."

"Where do you live, sir?" asked Leo.

"No.--Pemberton Square."

"Come, Maggie, we will go to him," added the boy.

"I want you to go with me, and show me where Fitz lives," interposed
the banker.

"He lives at No.--Atkinson Street, up the court," answered Leo, rather
coolly, as he picked up his cap and comforter.

"I want you to show me the house."

"I must go with Maggie."

Mr. Checkynshaw looked as though the barber's serious illness was of no
consequence, compared with his affairs.

"We can go that way, Leo, and you can show him the house as we pass
through Atkinson Street," said Maggie, leading the way to the door.

This arrangement was satisfactory to the banker; the house was locked,
and Leo led the way out of the court. The humble abode of Mrs.
Wittleworth was pointed out to Mr. Checkynshaw; and, after he had been
admitted, Leo and Maggie hastened to Pemberton Square, so sad and
sorrowful that hardly a word was spoken till they reached the lofty
mansion of the great man. With trembling hand Leo rang the bell; and
Maggie's slender frame quivered with apprehension while they waited for
a reply to the summons. Lawrence answered the bell more promptly than
when its call had disturbed him at his dinner.

"Is André Maggimore here?" asked Leo, timidly.

"Who?" demanded Lawrence.

"André Maggimore--the barber--the hair-dresser," replied Leo.

"You mane the man that had the fit," added the servant. "Indade, he's
here, thin."

"How is he?" asked Maggie, her heart bounding with fear lest she should
be told that her poor father was no more.

"He's a little better; but the docthor says it'll be a long day till he
is able to handle his razors again. What's this he called the disase?
The para-_ly_-sis! That's just what it is!"

"Poor _mon père_!" sighed Maggie.

"We would like to see him, if you please," added Leo.

"And who be you? Are you his children?" asked Lawrence.

"We are."

"I'm sorry for you; but he's very bad," added Lawrence, who had an
Irish heart under his vest, as he closed the front door.

"Is he--will he--"

Poor Maggie could not ask the question she desired to ask, and she
covered her face and wept.

"No, he won't," replied Lawrence, tenderly. "He won't die. The docthor
says he's comin' out of it; but the para-_ly_-sis will bodther him for
a long time."

Maggie was comforted by this reply, and she followed Lawrence up stairs
to the chamber where André lay. He had been conveyed from Elinora's
dressing-room to an apartment in the L, over the dining-room, where the
banker and his friends smoked their cigars after dinner. He was lying
on a lounge, covered with blankets, and the housekeeper was attending
him.

"Poor _mon père_!" exclaimed Maggie, as she threw herself on her knees
on the floor by the side of the sick man's couch, and kissed his pale,
thin face.

[Illustration: POOR MON PÈRE.--Page 84.]

Leo bent over his father's prostrate form, and clasped one of his silky
hands, which now felt so cold that the touch chilled his heart. The
doctor had just come in to pay his patient a second visit, and stood by
the lounge, regarding with interest the devotion of the boy and girl.

André had "come out" of the fit, and recognized his children, as he
always called them. He smiled faintly, and tried to return the pressure
of Leo's hand, and to kiss the lips of Maggie, pressed to his own; but
his strength was not yet equal to his desire.

"I think it would be better to remove him to the hospital," said the
doctor to the housekeeper. "He will be well nursed there."

"No, no, no!" exclaimed Maggie, rising and walking up to the physician.

Her idea of the hospital was not a very clear one, and she did not
consider it much better than a prison; at least, it was to her a place
where sick people who had neither home nor friends were sent; a place
where other hands than her own would lave her father's fevered brow,
and administer the cooling draught. To her it was sacrilege to permit
any but herself to nurse him; and she felt that it was a privilege to
stand day and night by his bed, and hold his hand, and anticipate all
his wants. Her womanly instincts were strong, and she heard with horror
the suggestion to take the sufferer to the hospital.

"Your father would be very kindly cared for at the hospital," said the
doctor.

"But it would not be his own home!" pleaded Maggie. "O, he so loves his
own home! He always staid there when he was not in the shop. It would
break his heart to send him away from his own home when he is sick."

"Have you a mother?" asked Dr. Fisher, kindly.

"I have not; but I will nurse him by day and night. I will be mother,
wife, and daughter to him. Do not send him away from me--not from his
own home!" continued Maggie, so imploringly that the good physician had
to take off his spectacles and wipe the moisture from his eyes.

"We will take good care of him at home," added Leo.

"Very well," replied the doctor. "He shall be removed to his own home,
since you desire it so much. Lawrence, will you send for a carriage?"

"I will, sir," answered the servant, leaving the room.

André had turned his eyes towards the group, and appeared to understand
the matter they were discussing. He smiled as he comprehended the
decision, and made an effort to embrace Maggie, when she again knelt at
his side; but a portion of his frame was paralyzed, and he could not
move.

"Your father may be sick a long time," said Dr. Fisher.

"I'm so sorry! But I will take such good care of him!" replied Maggie.

"He needs very careful nursing."

"O, he shall have it! He would rather have me nurse him than any other
person. I will watch him all the time. I will sit by his bed all day
and all night," added she, with womanly enthusiasm.

"You will wear yourself out. You are not strong enough to do without
your sleep."

"I am very strong, sir. I do all the work in the house myself. I know
how to make gruel, and porridge, and beef tea, and soup; and _mon père_
shall have everything nice."

The doctor smiled, and felt sure that no better nurse could be provided
for the sick man.

"Where is your mother?" he asked. "Is she living?"

"I have no mother. Leo has no mother. We are not André's own children;
but we love him just the same, and he loves us just the same."

"But who was your mother?"

"I don't know."

"Doesn't André know?"

"He does not."

"You have some kind of a history, I suppose," added the doctor, greatly
interested in the girl.

"_Mon père_ don't like to talk about it. He seems to be afraid that
some one will get me away from him; but I'm sure I don't want to go
away from him; I wouldn't leave him for a king's palace."

"Why do you call him '_mon père_'?"

"He taught me to call him so when I was little. André's father was an
Italian, and his mother a French woman; but he was born in London."

"Where did he find you?"

"At the cholera hospital."

"Where?"

"I don't know. He always looked so sad, and his heart seemed to be so
pained when I asked him any questions about myself, that I stopped
doing so long ago. When I was five years old, he found me playing about
the hospital, where hundreds and hundreds of people had died with
cholera. I had the cholera myself; and he came to play with me every
day; and when they were going to send me to an orphan asylum, or some
such place, he took me away, and promised to take care of me. Ah, _mon
père_" said she, glancing tenderly at the sick man, and wiping a tear
from her eyes, "how well he has kept his promise! I can't help thinking
he loved me more than any real father could. I never saw any father who
was so kind, and tender, and loving to his child as André is to me."

"And you don't know where this hospital was?"

"No, sir; and I don't want to know. _Mon père_ thinks my parents died
of the cholera; but André has been father and mother to me. He would
die if he lost me."

"And your brother--was he taken from the cholera hospital?" asked the
doctor.

"No, sir," replied Maggie, rising and speaking in a whisper to the
physician, so that Leo should not hear what she said. "André had to
leave me all alone when he went to the shop, and he went to the
almshouse to find a poor orphan to keep me company. He found Leo, whose
father and mother had both died from drinking too much. He took him
home, and _mon père_ has been as good to him as he has to me."

"His name is Leo--the Lion?"

"No, sir; not the lion. _Mon père_ called him Leopold, after the King
of Belgium, in whose service he once was; but we always call him Leo.
He is a real good boy, and will get the medal at his school this year."

"The carriage has come, sir," said Lawrence, opening the door.

The arrangements were made for the removal of the barber to his house.
The hackman and the man servant came to carry him down stairs in an
armchair, and the doctor was to go with his patient, and assist in
disposing of him at his house. André was placed in the chair, covered
with blankets, and the door opened in readiness to carry him down.
Maggie kept close to him, comforting him with the kindest words, and
adjusting the blanket so that the rude blasts of winter might not reach
him.

"Lawrence!" called Elinora, in a petulant tone, from the dressing-room
on the same floor.

Under the circumstances, Lawrence was not disposed to heed the call;
but it was so often and so ill-naturedly repeated, that Dr. Fisher told
him to go and see what she wanted, fearful that some accident had
happened to her. The man went into the hall. Elinora had come out of
her room in her impatience, arrayed for the party she was to attend.
Another hair-dresser had been sent for to complete the work which André
had begun; but the young lady was more than an hour late, and
proportionally impatient.

"Are you deaf, Lawrence? The carriage has come," pouted Elinora.

"That's not the carriage for you, miss. It's to take the barber to his
own place," replied Lawrence.

"That horrid barber again! I shall not get over the fright he gave me
for a month! I will take this carriage, and he may have the other when
it comes," said she, walking to the stairs. "Go down and open the door
for me."

"If you plaze, miss, you can't go in this carriage. It's for the sick
man."

"I don't care what it's for! I'm in a hurry, Lawrence. I must have the
first carriage."

"Indade, miss, but we have the sick man up in the chair, ready to take
him down the stairs. It's very bad he is."

"Let him wait! Go down and open the door, as I tell you."

"I beg your pardon, miss, but the docthor--"

"If you don't do what I tell you this instant, I'll ask pa to discharge
you."

Dr. Fisher came out to ascertain the cause of the delay. He explained
that the carriage had been ordered to convey the barber to his home,
and he insisted that it should be used for that purpose. André was his
patient, and he would not permit any further delay. Elinora pouted and
flouted, and hopped back into her chamber.

André was borne carefully down the stairs, and placed in the carriage.
Maggie and the doctor entered the vehicle with him, and they were
driven to the barber's own home, where he was placed upon his bed in
the front room.

CHAPTER VIII.

MAKE OR BREAK.

Maggie plied the kind-hearted physician with questions in regard to her
father's condition--with questions which no man with merely human
knowledge could answer. He thought André would be able to talk to her
by the next day; but he feared the patient would not be well enough to
resume his place in the shop for weeks, and perhaps months.

André appeared to be quite comfortable, and did not seem to be
suffering very severely. The doctor had given him some medicine before
he was removed from the banker's house, and the sick man went to sleep
soon after he was put to bed in his own room. Dr. Fisher then went out
into the rear room, and told Maggie that her father would probably
sleep for several hours.

"I will come again in the morning, Maggie," said he. "Is there anything
I can do for you?"

"Nothing more, I thank you, sir," replied she. "I am very grateful to
you for what you have done."

"I know nothing about your father's circumstances; but if you need any
assistance, I hope you will make it known."

"Thank you, sir; I don't think we need anything," replied Maggie, a
slight blush mantling her pretty face; for the idea of asking or
accepting charity was painful to her.

"I fear it will be a long time before your father will be able to work
again," continued Dr. Fisher, glancing around the room to ascertain, if
possible, whether the singular family were in poverty or in plenty.

"I will take good care of him, whether it be for weeks or for months,
or even for years. You don't know how sorry I am to have poor _mon
père_ sick; but you can't think what a pleasure it is to me to have
an opportunity to do something for him. I wish I could tell you how
good and kind he has always been to me; how tenderly he watched over me
when I was sick; how lovingly he prayed for me; but I cannot, though it
makes me happy to think I can now do something for him."

"You are a good girl, Maggie, and I don't see how André could have done
any less for you," replied the doctor. "Who keeps house here?"

"O, I do that, sir."

"Then you must have to work very hard."

"Indeed, I don't! I have to keep busy almost all day; but it is such a
pleasure to me to know that I am doing something for _mon père_, that I
never think it is hard at all."

Everything looked so neat and nice in the house that the doctor could
not decide whether any assistance was required or not. He was one of
those good physicians who felt for the poor and the humble. Though he
practised in some of the richest and most aristocratic families in the
city, his mission was not to them alone. He visited the haunts of
poverty, and not only contributed his professional services in their
aid, but he gave with no stinted hand from his own purse to relieve
their wants. When he died, the sermon preached on the Sunday after his
funeral was from the text, "The beloved physician;" and no one ever
went to his reward in heaven who better deserved the praise bestowed
upon him.

In the present instance, he felt that his work was not alone to heal
the sick. His patient was a journeyman barber, with only a boy, and a
girl of fifteen, to depend upon. This same doctor often went among his
friends in State Street, in 'change hours, to preach the gospel of
charity in his own unostentatious way. All gave when he asked, and it
was not a very difficult matter for him to raise fifty or a hundred
dollars for a deserving family. He purposed to do this for those under
the barber's humble roof, who, without being connected by the remotest
tie of blood, were more loving and devoted towards each other than many
whom God had joined by the ties of kindred.

The doctor never told anybody of his good deeds. Hardly did his left
hand know what his right hand did; and one of his eyes, which followed
not the other's apparent line of vision, seemed to be looking out all
the time for some hidden source of human suffering. He was as tender of
the feelings of others as he was of the visible wounds of his patients.
He saw the blush upon the cheeks of Maggie, and he interpreted it as
readily as though the sentiment had been expressed in words. He forbore
to make any further inquiries in regard to the pecuniary condition of
the strange family; but he was determined that all their wants should
be supplied, without injury to their laudable pride. He went away, and
Maggie and Leo were left to themselves.

"You haven't been to supper, Leo," said Maggie, when Dr. Fisher had
gone.

"I don't seem to care about any supper," replied Leo, gloomily.

"You must eat your supper, Leo," added Maggie, as she placed the teapot
on the table. "There are some cold sausages I saved for _mon père_. Sit
down, Leo. We must work now, and we need all the strength we can get."

Then she crept on tiptoe into the front room, and looked into the face
of the sleeper. He was still slumbering, and she returned to the table,
seating herself in her accustomed place, near the stove. Leo looked
heavy and gloomy, as well he might; for the sad event of that day
promised to blast the bright hopes in which his sanguine nature
revelled. He knew, and Maggie knew, that André Maggimore had made no
preparation for the calamity which had so suddenly overtaken him.

It was Wednesday, and the wages of the preceding week were more than
half used. He had no money, no resources, no friends upon whom he could
depend, to fall back on in the day of his weakness. The barber was
faithful and affectionate as a woman, but he had no business
calculation, and his forethought rarely extended beyond the duration of
a single week. While he owed no man anything, and never contracted any
debts, he had never saved a dollar beyond what he had invested in
furnishing the small house.

The dark day had come, and Leo was the first to see it. In another
week, or, at most, in two weeks, every dollar the barber had would have
been spent. It was plain enough to him that he could not continue to
attend school till exhibition day came, and he would lose the medal he
coveted, and for which he had worked most diligently. Maggie poured out
his cup of tea, and handed it to him. He was eating his supper; but his
head was bowed down.

"Leo," said she.

He looked up with a start, took his tea, and immediately lost himself
again.

"Leo!" added Maggie, in her peculiarly tender tones.

He looked up again.

"What are you thinking about, Leo?" she continued, gazing earnestly at
him. "I need not ask you, Leo. You are thinking of poor _mon père_."

"I was thinking of him. I was thinking, too, that I should lose my
medal now," replied Leo, gloomily.

"Fie on your medal! Don't think of such a trifle as that!" she added,
gently rebuking the selfish thought of her brother.

"You don't quite understand me, Maggie."

"I hope you are not thinking of yourself, Leo--only of _mon père_."

"I was thinking that he has worked for me, and now I must work for him.
I must give up my school now."

"You must, indeed, Leo."

"We can't stay in this house unless we pay the rent. Father made ten
dollars a week, and it took every cent of it to pay the expenses. What
shall we do now?"

"We must both work."

"We can't make ten dollars a week if both of us work. But you can't do
anything more than take care of father. I don't see how we are going to
get along. Fitz Wittleworth has only five dollars a week at Mr.
Checkynshaw's. If he gave me the same wages, it wouldn't more than half
pay our expenses."

Maggie looked puzzled and perplexed at this plain statement. It was a
view of the situation she had not before taken, and she could not
suggest any method of solving the difficult problem.

"We can reduce our expenses," said she, at last, a cheerful glow
lighting up her face as she seemed to have found the remedy.

"You can't reduce them. The doctor's bill and the medicines will more
than make up for anything we can save in things to eat and drink."

"That's very true, Leo. What shall we do?" inquired Maggie,
sorrowfully, as her ingenious argument was overthrown.

"I don't know what we can do. They say doctors charge a dollar a visit,
and that will make seven dollars a week. The medicines will cost
another dollar, at least, perhaps two or three. That makes eight
dollars. Even if we save three dollars a week in provisions and such
things, it will cost fifteen dollars a week. I might as well try to fly
as to make that. I couldn't do it. It's half as much again as father
could make."

"O, dear!" sighed Maggie, appalled by this array of financial demands.

"I suppose the doctor won't bring in his bill yet a while," added Leo.

"But we must pay him. _Mon père_ would worry himself to death in a
short time if he knew he was getting in debt."

"I don't see how we can do it."

Leo relapsed into silence again, and finished his supper. The problem
troubled him. He sat down by the stove, and did not move for half an
hour. Maggie cleared off the table, washed the dishes and put them
away, creeping stealthily into the front room every few moments to
assure herself that all was well with her father.

"Leo, don't worry any more. We shall be cared for somehow. Our good
Father in heaven will watch over us in the future, as he has in the
past. Trust in God, Leo," said Maggie, impressively. "I will not worry
any more, and you must not."

"I will trust in God; but God expects me to do something more than
that. He helps those who help themselves. I am going to do something!"
exclaimed he, springing to his feet. "MAKE OR BREAK, I'm going to do my
duty; I'm going to do my whole duty."

"What are you going to do, Leo?"

"I don't know yet; but, make or break, I'm going to do something. It's
no use for me to work for Mr. Checkynshaw at five dollars a week, when
it will cost us fifteen dollars a week to get along. I'm going to do
something," continued Leo, as he took a lamp from the shelf and lighted
it.

Then he stopped before Maggie, and looked her full in the face, his
eyes lighting up with unusual lustre.

"Why, what's the matter, Leo? What makes you look at me so?"

"Maggie, André is not our own father; but he has done all that an own
father could do for us. Maggie, let me take your hand."

She gave him her hand, and was awed by the impressive earnestness of
his manner.

"Maggie, I'm going to do my duty now. I want to promise you that poor
father shall never want for anything. I want to promise you that I will
do all for him that a real son could do."

"Good, kind Leo! We will both do our whole duty."

Leo dropped her hand, and went down stairs into his workshop. The white
mice were capering and gamboling about their palatial abodes, all
unconscious that poor André had been stricken down. Leo gave them their
suppers, and sat down on the work-bench. He was in deep thought, and
remained immovable for a long time.

He was a natural mechanic. His head was full of mechanical ideas. Was
there not some useful article which he could make and sell--a
boot-jack, a work-box, a writing-desk--something new and novel? He had
half a dozen such things in his mind, and he was thinking which one it
would pay best to mature. His thought excited him, and he twisted about
on the bench, knocking a chisel on the floor. The noise frightened the
mice, and they made a stampede to their nests. He looked up at them.

"That's an idea!" exclaimed he, leaping off the bench. "Make or break,
I'll put it through!"

CHAPTER IX.

MR. CHECKYNSHAW AND FAMILY.

We left Mr. Checkynshaw entering the house of Mrs. Wittleworth, in
Atkinson Street; and, as he was a gentleman of eminent dignity and
gravity, we feel compelled to beg his pardon for leaving him so long
out in the cold of a winter night. Having made the barber as
comfortable as the circumstances would permit, we are entirely willing
to let the banker in, though the abode at which he sought admission was
hardly worthy of the distinguished honor thus conferred upon it.

Mrs. Wittleworth cautiously opened the door, for those who have the
least to steal are often the most afraid of robbers; but, recognizing
the lofty personage at the door, she invited him to enter, much
wondering what had driven him from his comfortable abode in Pemberton
Square to seek out her obscure residence at that hour in the evening.
Mr. Checkynshaw was conducted to an apartment which served as kitchen,
parlor, and bed-room for the poor woman, her son having a chamber up
stairs. A seat was handed to the great man, and he sat down by the
cooking-stove, after bestowing a glance of apparent disgust at the room
and its furnishings.

The banker rubbed his hands, and looked as though he meant business;
and Mrs. Wittleworth actually trembled with fear lest some new calamity
was about to be heaped upon the pile of misfortunes that already
weighed her down. Mr. Checkynshaw had never before darkened her doors.
Though she had once been a welcome guest within his drawing-rooms, she
had long since been discarded, and cast out, and forgotten. When the
poor woman, worse than a widow, pleaded before him for the means of
living, he had given her son a place in his office, at a salary of five
dollars a week. If she had gone to him again, doubtless he would have
done more for her; but, as long as she could keep soul and body
together by her ill-paid drudgery, she could not endure the humiliation
of displaying her poverty to him.

Mrs. Wittleworth had once lived in affluence. She had been brought up
in ease and luxury, and her present lot was all the harder for the
contrast. Her father, James Osborne, was an enterprising merchant, who
had accumulated a fortune of a hundred thousand dollars, on which he
had the good sense to retire from active business. Of his four
children, the two sons died, leaving the two daughters to inherit his
wealth.

John Wittleworth, the father of Fitz, was a clerk in the counting-room
of Mr. Osborne, and finally became the partner of his employer, whose
confidence he obtained to such a degree that the merchant was willing
to trust him with all he had. He married Ellen Osborne; and when her
father retired from business, his son-in-law carried it on alone. At
this time, doubtless, John Wittleworth was worthy of all the confidence
reposed in him, for the terrible habit, which eventually beggared him,
had not developed itself to an extent which seemed perilous even to the
eye of affection.

A few years after the marriage of Ellen, Mr. Checkynshaw, then aspiring
to no higher title than that of a simple broker, presented himself as
the suitor of Mary, the younger daughter of the retired merchant. Mr.
Osborne did not like him very well; but Mary did, and their affair was
permitted to take its course. Only a few months after this alliance of
the Checkynshaw and the Osborne, the merchant was taken sick. When it
was evident that his days were drawing to a close, he made his will.

His property consisted of about one hundred thousand dollars. One half
of it was invested in a block of stores, which paid a heavy rental, and
the other half was in money, stocks, and debts. In settling the affairs
of the firm he had taken John Wittleworth's notes for thirty thousand
dollars, secured by a mortgage on the stock. In making his will, Mr.
Osborne gave to Ellen or--what was the same thing in those days, when a
woman did not own her own property--to her husband, all the money,
stocks, and debts due from Wittleworth. He did this because his late
partner wanted more capital to increase his business.

To Mary, the wife of Mr. Checkynshaw, he gave the block of stores; but,
not having so much confidence in Mary's husband as in Ellen's, he gave
her the property with certain restrictions. The income of the estate
was to be hers--or her husband's--during her life. At her death the
estate was to pass to her children. If she died without children, the
property was to be her sister's, or her sister's children's. But Mr.
Osborne did not wish to exhibit any want of confidence in Mary's
husband; so he made Mr. Checkynshaw the trustee, to hold the block of
stores for his wife and for her children. He had the power to collect
the rents, and as long as his wife lived, or as long as her children
lived, the money was practically his own.

Mary, the first Mrs. Checkynshaw, was in rather feeble health, and the
doctors advised her to spend the winter in the south of France. Her
husband complied with this advice; and her child, Marguerite, was born
in Perpignan, and had a French name because she was born in France. The
family returned home in the following spring; but Mrs. Checkynshaw died
during the succeeding winter. Marguerite was a fine, healthy child; and
to her now belonged the block of stores bequeathed by her grandfather,
her father holding it in trust for her.

In another year Mr. Checkynshaw married his second wife, who treated
little Marguerite well enough, though she felt no deep and motherly
interest in her, especially after Elinora, her own daughter, was born.
Mr. Checkynshaw called himself a banker now. He had taken Mr. Hart and
another gentleman into the concern as partners, and the banking-house
of Checkynshaw, Hart, & Co. was a rising establishment.

The second Mrs. Checkynshaw was an ambitious woman, vain and
pretentious. Her friends had been to London, Paris, Naples, and Rome.
She had never been in Europe, and it galled her to be out of the
fashion. When Elinora was only two years old, she insisted upon going
abroad. Her husband did not like the idea of travelling with two
children, one five and the other two years old. But he was
over-persuaded, and finally consented to go. They arrived in Paris in
July, and intended to remain there two months; but, before this period
elapsed, the banker received a letter from Mr. Hart informing him of
the sudden death of the third partner in their house. This event
compelled him to return immediately; but Mrs. Checkynshaw was so well
pleased with Parisian life, that she was unwilling to leave the city so
soon. The voyage to her was terrible, and she had seen little or
nothing of Europe. The family had taken apartments, and she was loath
to leave them.

A friend of the banker, who with his wife occupied rooms in the same
house, suggested that Mrs. Checkynshaw and her children should remain
until her husband could return, two or three months later. An
arrangement to this effect was made, and the banker hastened home to
settle his business affairs. He had hardly departed before the cholera
broke out with fearful violence in Paris. One of its first victims was
the gentleman who had charge of Mr. Checkynshaw's family. His wife
followed him, only a day later, to the cholera hospital.

Of course the banker's wife was terribly frightened, and instantly made
her preparations to leave the infected city. Poor little Marguerite was
the first of the family to take the disease, and she was hurried off to
the hospital by the landlord of the house, who was very polite, but
very heartless. This event would not have delayed the departure of Mrs.
Checkynshaw, but she was stricken down herself before she could leave.
The fearful malady raged with awful violence; hospitals were crowded
with patients, and the dead were hurried to their last resting-place
without a prayer or a dirge.

Little Elinora was taken by her nurse to the Sisters of Charity, and
escaped the disease. Mrs. Checkynshaw recovered, and as soon as she was
able, reclaimed her child, and fled to the interior of Switzerland, to
a small town which the plague had not yet visited. When the panic had
subsided, she returned to Paris. She bad been informed, before her
departure, that little Marguerite had died of the disease; but, on her
return, she visited the hospital, and made more careful inquiry in
regard to the little patient. She was told that the child answering to
her description had died, and been buried with a dozen others. It was
then impossible to identify the remains of the child.

Mr. Checkynshaw returned to Paris in September. His wife had written to
him and to Mrs. Wittleworth as soon as she was able, and her husband
had received her letter before his departure from Boston. Poor little
Marguerite! She was his own child, and he was sorely grieved at her
death. He was not quite satisfied with his wife's investigations, and
he determined to inquire further. With Mrs. Checkynshaw he went to the
hospital.

"The child died the day after it was brought here," replied the
director. "Here is the name;" and he pointed to the record.

The name indicated certainly was not "Checkynshaw," though it was as
near it as a Frenchman could be expected to write it. The letters
spelled "Chuckingham."

"Allow me to look at the book," said Mr. Checkynshaw.

"Certainly, sir; but I remember the case well. She was a little English
girl," added the director.

"This child was American," interposed the anxious father.

"We cannot tell the difference. She spoke only English."

"What is this?" asked Mr. Checkynshaw, pointing to another name.
"Marguerite Poulebah."

"That patient was discharged, cured."

"Do you translate English proper names?"

"Never!"

"What became of this patient?" asked Mr. Checkynshaw, deeply
interested.

"I don't know."

The banker was satisfied that "Marguerite Poulebah" was his daughter;
that the persons who had brought her to the hospital understood a
little English, and had translated his surname literally from "chicken"
and "pshaw." He investigated the matter for a week. The concierge of
the lodgings where he had resided assured him he had not given the name
as "Poulebah." At the end of the week he informed his wife that he had
obtained a clew to the child. She had been taken from the hospital by
the Sisters of Charity, and sent to Strasburg, that she might not have
a relapse. Mr. Checkynshaw went to Strasburg alone.

On his return he assured his wife that he had found Marguerite; that
she was happy with the Sisters, and cried when he spoke of taking her
away. The devoted ladies were very much attached to her, he said; and
he had concluded that it would be best to leave her there, at least
until they were ready to embark for home. Mrs. Checkynshaw did not
object. She had no love for the child, and though she had treated her
well from a sense of duty, was rather glad to get rid of her.

The family remained in Europe till the next spring. Mr. Checkynshaw
went to see his daughter again. The Sisters were educating her, and he
declared that Marguerite was so very happy with them, and begged so
hard not to be taken from them, that he had consented to let her remain
at their school. Mrs. Checkynshaw did not care; she thought it was
strange; but if the child's father deemed it best for her to remain
with the Sisters, it was not for her to say anything. She did not say
anything--Marguerite was not her own child.

When they returned to Boston, the friends of the Osbornes wished to
know what had become of the child. Mr. Checkynshaw had not informed any
one of the death of Marguerite when the intelligence came to him in his
wife's letter, though Mrs. Wittleworth had received it direct from the
same source. He had grieved deeply at the loss of the child. Yet his
sorrow was not alone for poor Marguerite; the block of stores, every
year increasing in value, must not pass out of his hands.

"The poor child had the cholera in Paris, and was sent to the
hospital," was his reply. "When she recovered, Mrs. Checkynshaw was
down with the disease, and the Sisters of Charity took her in charge.
They treated her as a mother treats her own child, and Marguerite loves
them better than she does my wife. I don't like to say anything about
it, and will not, except to most intimate friends; but Marguerite was
not Mrs. Checkynshaw's own daughter. They were not very fond of each
other, and--well, I think you ought to be able to understand the matter
without my saying anything more. The poor child is very happy where she
is, and I had not the heart to separate her from such dear friends."

Everybody inferred that Mrs. Checkynshaw did not treat the child well,
and no more questions were asked. The banking-house of Checkynshaw,
Hart, & Co. increased in wealth and importance, and had extensive
foreign connections in England. Every year or two the head of the house
crossed the ocean, partly, as he declared, to transact his business in
London, and partly to visit his child in France.

CHAPTER X.

THE WITTLEWORTH FAMILY.

While everything appeared to be well with the banker, into whose
exchequer the revenues of the block of stores flowed with
unintermitting regularity, the affairs of the other branch of the
Osborne family were in a far less hopeful condition. John Wittleworth
drank to excess, and did not attend to his business. It was said that
he gambled largely; but it was not necessary to add this vice to the
other in order to rob him of his property, and filch from him his good
name.

He failed in business, and was unable to reëstablish himself. He
obtained a situation as a clerk, but his intemperate habits unfitted
him for his duties. If he could not take care of his own affairs, much
less could he manage the affairs of another. He had become a confirmed
sot, had sacrificed everything, and given himself up to the demon of
the cup. He became a ragged, filthy drunkard; and as such, friends who
had formerly honored him refused to recognize him, or to permit him to
enter their counting-rooms. Just before the opening of our story, he
had been arrested as a common drunkard; and it was even a relief to his
poor wife to know that he was safely lodged in the House of Correction.

When Mrs. Wittleworth found she could no longer depend upon her natural
protector, she went to work with her own hands, like an heroic woman,
as she was. As soon as her son was old enough to be of any assistance
to her, a place was found for him in a lawyer's office, where he
received a couple of dollars a week. Her own health giving way under
the drudgery of toil, to which she had never been accustomed, she was
obliged to depend more and more upon Fitz, who, in the main, was not a
bad boy, though his notions were not suited to the station in which he
was compelled to walk. At last she was obliged to appeal to her
brother-in-law, who gave Fitz his situation.

Fitz was rather "airy." He had a better opinion of himself than anybody
else had--a vicious habit, which the world does not readily forgive. He
wanted to dress himself up, and "swell" round among bigger men than
himself. His mother was disappointed in him, and tried to teach him
better things; but he believed that his mother was only a woman, and
that he was wiser, and more skilful in worldly affairs, than she was.
He paid her three dollars a week out of his salary of five dollars, and
in doing this he believed that he discharged his whole duty to her.

Perhaps we ought again to apologize to Mr. Checkynshaw for leaving him
so long in such a disagreeable place as the poor home of his first
wife's sister; but he was seated before the cooking-stove, and the
contemplation of poverty would do him no harm; so we shall not beg his
pardon.

The banker looked around the room, at the meagre and mean furniture,
and then at the woman herself; her who had once been the belle of the
circle in which she moved, now clothed in the cheapest calico, her face
pale and hollow from hard work and ceaseless anxiety. Perhaps he found
it difficult to believe that she was the sister of his first wife.

"Where is Fitz?" asked he, in gruff accents.

"He has gone up in Summer Street. He will be back in a few minutes,"
replied Mrs. Wittleworth, as she seated herself opposite the banker,
still fearing that some new calamity was about to overtake her.

"I want to see him," added Mr. Checkynshaw, in the most uncompromising
tones.

"Fitz says you discharged him," continued the poor woman, heaving a
deep sigh.

"I didn't; he discharged himself. I could not endure the puppy's
impudence. But that is neither here nor there. I don't want to see him
about that."

"I hope you will take him back."

"Take him back if he will behave himself."

"Will you?" asked she, eagerly.

"I will; that is, if it turns out that he was not concerned in robbing
my safe."

"In what?" exclaimed Mrs. Wittleworth.

"My safe has been robbed of some of my most valuable papers."

"Robbed!"

"Yes, robbed."

"Did Fitz do it?" gasped the wretched mother; and this was even a
greater calamity than any she had dreaded.

"I don't know whether he did or not; that's what I want to find out;
that's what I want to see him for."

Mr. Checkynshaw proceeded to relate the circumstances under which the
safe had been robbed. Before he had finished, Fitz came in, and his
mother was too impatient to wait for her distinguished visitor to set
any of his verbal traps and snares. She bluntly informed her hopeful
son that he was suspected of being concerned in the robbery.

"I don't know anything about it. I had nothing to do with it,"
protested Fitz. "There's nothing too mean for Checkynshaw to say."

"Don't be saucy, Fitz. Try to be civil," pleaded his mother.

"Be civil! What, when he comes here to accuse me of robbing his safe? I
can't stand that, and I won't, if I know myself," replied Fitz, shaking
his head vehemently at the banker.

"I haven't accused you of anything, Fitz," added Mr. Checkynshaw, very
mildly for him. "I came to inquire about it."

"Do you think if I did it that I would tell you of it?"

"I wish to ask you some questions."

"Well, you needn't!"

"Very well, young man," said the banker, rising from his chair, "if you
don't choose to answer me, you can answer somebody else. I'll have you
arrested."

"Arrested! I'd like to see you do it! What for? I know something about
law!" He had been an errand boy in a lawyer's office!

"Don't be so rude, Fitz," begged his mother.

"Arrest me!" repeated the violent youth, whose dignity had been touched
by the threat. "Do it! Why didn't you do it before you came here? You
can't scare me! I wasn't brought up in the city to be frightened by a
brick house. Why don't you go for a constable, and take me up now? I'd
like to have you do it."

"I will do it if you don't behave yourself," said the banker, beginning
to be a little ruffled by the violent and unreasonable conduct of Mr.
Wittleworth.

"I wish you would! I really wish you would! I should like to know what
my friend Choate would say about it."

"How silly you talk!" exclaimed his mother, quite as much disgusted as
her stately visitor.

"You may let him badger you, if you like, mother; but he shall not come
any odds on me--not if I know it, and I think I do!"

"It is useless for me to attempt to say anything to such a young
porcupine," added Mr. Checkynshaw, taking his hat from the table.

Mrs. Wittleworth burst into tears. She had hoped to effect a
reconciliation between her son and his employer, upon which her very
immunity from blank starvation seemed to depend. The case was a
desperate one, and the bad behavior of Fitz seemed to destroy her last
hope.

"I will give up now, Fitz, and go to the almshouse," sobbed she.

Fitz was inclined to give up also when this stunning acknowledgment was
made in the presence of his great enemy, the arch dragon of
respectability.

"I am willing to work, but not to be trodden upon," added he, sullenly;
but his spirit for the moment seemed to be subdued.

"Mr. Checkynshaw wishes to ask you some questions, and it is your duty
to answer them," said Mrs. Wittleworth, a little encouraged by the more
hopeful aspect of her belligerent son.

"Ask away," replied Fitz, settling himself into a chair, and fixing his
gaze upon the stove.

"Do you know Pilky Wayne?" asked the banker, who had a certain
undefined fear of Fitz since the robbery, which, however, the immensity
of his dignity prevented him from exposing.

"Know who?" demanded Fitz, looking up.

"Pilky Wayne."

"Never heard of him before."

"Yes, you have; you made an arrangement with him to rob my safe,"
continued the banker, who could not help browbeating his inferior.

"Did I? Well, if I did, I did," answered Fitz, shaking his head. "What
do you think my friend Choate would say to that?"

"He would say you were a silly fellow," interposed Mrs. Wittleworth.
"Don't be impudent, Fitz."

"Well, I won't be impudent!" said Fitz, with a kind of suppressed
chuckle.

"There were, or you thought there were, certain papers in my safe which
might be useful to you," added Mr. Checkynshaw.

"I don't believe there were any letters from my cousin Marguerite among
them," replied Fitz, with a sneering laugh. "Marguerite must be able to
write very pretty letters by this time."

"Be still, Fitz," pleaded Mrs. Wittleworth.

"Fitz, I don't want to quarrel with you," continued Mr. Checkynshaw, in
the most pliable tones Fitz had ever heard the banker use to him.

"I thought you did. Accusing a gentleman of robbing your safe is not
exactly the way to make friends with him," said Fitz, so much
astonished at the great man's change of tone that he hardly knew what
to say.

"I accuse you of nothing. Fitz, if you want your place in my office
again, you can return to-morrow morning."

Mr. Wittleworth looked at his disconsolate mother. A gleam of triumph
rested on his face. The banker, the head and front of the great house
of Checkynshaw, Hart, & Co., had fully and directly recognized the
value of his services; had fairly "backed out," and actually entreated
him to return, and fill the vacant place, which no other person was
competent to fill! That was glory enough for one day. But he concluded
that it would be better for the banker to come down a peg farther, and
apologize for his abusive treatment of his confidential clerk.

"Certainly he will be glad to take the place again, sir," said Mrs.
Wittleworth, who was anxious to help along the negotiation.

"Perhaps I will; and then again, perhaps I will not," replied Mr.
Wittleworth, who was beginning to be airy again, and threw himself back
on his chair, sucked his teeth, and looked as magnificent as an Eastern
prince. "Are you willing to double my salary, Mr. Checkynshaw?"

"After what I have heard here to-night, I am," answered the banker,
promptly. "I ought to have done it before; and I should, had I known
your mother's circumstances."

That was very unlike Mr. Checkynshaw. Mr. Wittleworth did not like it.
His salary was to be doubled as an act of charity, rather than because
he deserved such a favor. It was not like the banker to want him at all
after what had happened. There was something deep under it; but Fitz
was deep himself.

"Perhaps you might help me in finding my papers. Of course I don't care
a straw for the three hundred and fifty dollars or so which was stolen
with them," suggested Mr. Checkynshaw.

"Perhaps I might; perhaps I have some skill in business of that kind,
though I suppose it doesn't exactly become me to say so," added Fitz,
stroking his chin. "But if you mean to intimate that I know anything
about them, you are utterly and entirely mistaken. I'm an honest
man--the noblest work of God."

"I will give you ten dollars a week for the future, if you will
return," said Mr. Checkynshaw, impatiently.

"Of course he will," almost gasped the eager mother.

Fitz was deep. The banker was anxious. It meant something. Fitz thought
he knew what it meant.

"On the whole, I think I will _not_ return," replied he, deliberately.

"Are you crazy, Fitz?" groaned Mrs. Wittleworth, in despair.

"Never a more sane man walked the earth. Mr. Checkynshaw knows what he
is about; I know what I am about."

"We shall both starve, Fitz!" cried his mother.

"On the contrary, mother, we shall soon be in possession of that block
of stores, with an income of five or six thousand a year," added Fitz,
complacently.

"The boy's an idiot!" exclaimed the banker, as he took his hat, and
rushed out of the house.

CHAPTER XI.

THE MOUSE BUSINESS.

While Maggie Maggimore took upon herself the blessed task of nursing
the barber, Leo charged himself with the duty of providing for the
wants of the family. Each had assumed all that one person could be
expected to achieve. It was no small thing for a girl of fifteen to
take the entire care of a helpless invalid; and it was no small thing
for a boy of fifteen to take upon himself the task of providing for the
expenses of the house, and the medical attendance of the sick man.

It would have been much easier for Leo to fail in his assumed task than
for Maggie to do so. Even a young man of so much importance as
Fitzherbert Wittleworth, upon whom the salvation of the great house of
Checkynshaw, Hart, & Co. seemed to depend, toiled for the meagre
pittance of five dollars a week. Leo had some acquaintance with the
late clerk in the private office of the banker, and he had listened
with wonder to the astounding achievements of Fitz in the postal and
financial departments of the house. Of course Mr. Wittleworth would be
a partner in the concern as soon as he was twenty-one, if not before;
for, besides his own marvellous abilities, he had the additional
advantage of being a relative of the distinguished head of the concern.

Leo was abashed at his own insignificance when he stood in the presence
of the banker's clerk. If such an astonishing combination of talent as
Mr. Wittleworth possessed could be purchased for five dollars a week,
what could he, who was only a mere tinker, expect to obtain? Half that
sum would have been an extravagant valuation of his own services, under
ordinary circumstances. But beneath the burden which now rested upon
him, he felt an inspiration which had never before fired his soul; he
felt called upon to perform a miracle.

He was born with a mechanical genius, and he felt it working within
him. There was no end of wooden trip-hammers, saw-mills, and other
working machines he had invented and constructed. Under the pressure of
the present necessity he felt able to accomplish better things.
Something must be done which would produce fifteen, or at least ten,
dollars a week. It was no use to think it couldn't be done; it must be
done. It looked like a species of lunacy on his part to flatter himself
that it was possible to make even more than a journeyman mechanic's
wages.

Leo had in his busy brain half a dozen crude plans of simple machines.
Often, when he saw people at work, he tried to think how the labor
might be done by machinery. As he sat in the kitchen, where Maggie was
sewing or preparing the dinner, he was devising a way to perform the
task with wood and iron. Only a few days before the illness of the
barber, he had seen her slicing potatoes to fry, and the operation had
suggested a potato slicer, which would answer equally well for
cucumbers, onions, and apples.

Sitting on the bench, he was thinking of this apparatus, when fifteen
dollars a week became a necessity. But the machine required more iron
than wood work, and he had not the means to do the former, and no
capital to invest in other people's labor. Then he turned his attention
to a new kind of boot-jack he had in his mind--an improvement on one he
had seen, which could be folded up and put in a traveller's carpet-bag.
As this implement was all wood except the hinges and screws, it looked
more hopeful. He could make half a dozen of them in a day, and they
would sell for half a dollar apiece. He was thinking of an improvement
on the improvement, when the stampede of the mice deranged his ideas;
but they gave him a new one.

White mice were beautiful little creatures. Their fur was so very
white, their eyes so very pink, and their paws so very cunning, that
everybody liked to see them. Even the magnificent Mr. Checkynshaw had
deigned to regard them with some attention, and had condescended to say
that his daughter Elinora would be delighted to see them. Then the
houses, and the gymnastic apparatus which Leo attached to them,
rendered them tenfold more interesting. At a store in Court Street the
enterprising young man had seen them sold for half a dollar a pair;
indeed, he had paid this sum for the ancestral couple from which had
descended, in the brief space of a year and a half the numerous tribes
and families that peopled the miniature palaces on the basement walls.

At this rate his present stock was worth seventy-five dollars--the
coveted salary of five whole weeks! In another month, at least fifty
more little downy pink-eyes would emerge from their nests, adding
twenty-five dollars more to his capital stock in trade!

Leo had already decided to go into the mouse business.

He was counting his chickens before they were hatched, and building
magnificent castles in the air; but even the most brilliant success, as
well as the most decided failure, is generally preceded by a vast
amount of ground and lofty tumbling in the imagination. If the man in
Court Street could sell a pair of white mice for fifty cents, and a
beggarly tin box with a whirligig for a dollar, making the
establishment and its occupants cost a dollar and a half, why would not
one of his splendid palaces, with two or three pairs of mice in it,
bring three, or even five dollars? That was the point, and there was
the argument all lying in a nutshell.

Leo had faith. What would a rich man care for five dollars when he
wanted to please his children? He had watched his mice day after day,
and week after week, by the hour at a time, and had never failed to be
amused at their gambols. Everybody that came to the house was delighted
with them. If the man in Court Street could sell them, he could. There
was money in the speculation, Leo reasoned, and it should not fail for
the want of a fair trial.

He could make houses of various sizes, styles, and prices, and thus
suit all tastes. He could stock each one with as many mice as the
customer desired. He could make a pretty elaborate establishment in two
days--five-dollar size; and of the smaller and plainer kind--two-dollar
pattern--he could make two in a day.

The palace on the bench was nearly completed, and he went to work at
once and finished it. It had a glass front, so that the dainty little
occupants of the institution could not get out, and the foe of white
mice, the terrible cat, could not get in. This establishment had been
intended for Mr. Stropmore; but as that gentleman had not been informed
of his purpose to present it, Leo decided that it should be used to
initiate the experiment on whose success so much depended.

It was ten o'clock at night when the grand palace on the bench was
finished. Leo put some cotton wool into the sleeping apartments, and
then transferred three pairs of mice from the most densely populated
house to the new one. He watched them for a while, as they explored
their elegant hotel, going up stairs and down, snuffing in every