Chapter 3

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. Andre 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.

Andre 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 Andre 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, Andre 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 Andre; 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 Andre 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 Andre 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. Andre'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 Andre, 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 Andre, 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."

Andre 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 Andre 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 Andre 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.