CHAPTER II.

SHEPPARD LEE'S FIRST HIT AT MONEY-MAKING.

It was at such a season that I entered the shaver's body. The knocks at my door were frequent, and the demands of my visiters to be brought into presence irresistible. What cared they for my pains and sickness?--they wanted money: what cared _I_ for my pains and sickness? --I was anxious to make it. I ordered my house-keeper Barbara (for it seems I was such a niggard I had no other servant) to admit all well-dressed applicants; for I scorned to deal with any other.

The first person admitted was a woman, very good looking, but advanced in years. She kept a boarding-house, but, as Barbara informed me, had seen better days, having been the wife of a rich merchant, who failed, was absurd enough to keep his books so straight as to allow no opportunity for defrauding his creditors, surrendered up every cent of his property, and died a beggar, leaving a widow and six orphan daughters to lament his honesty.

She was in some little flurry and perturbation of spirits, but I spoke with a blandness that astonished myself, until I found that this was always my practice with a customer whom I was not tired of. This restored her to confidence and garrulity.

Her tale was soon told:--her boarders were all very fine gentlemen and ladies, and good pay; but the times were so hard, they were just at this moment compelled to pay with promises; with which coin her landlord was not so easily satisfied. She would not distress poor Mr. G., who owed her a hundred and fifty dollars, nor Mr. H., nor Mrs. I., who were all in a peck of trouble just then, but were well enough to do in the world--no, not she; she had heard I was so good as often to lend to people who wanted money for a few days, even when the banks would not, provided they were good and safe; and who was better and safer than she? With all her troubles, and the Lord he knew they were many and enough, she had always paid her debts, and she defied anybody to say the contrary: and so she hoped I would be so good as to oblige her with the small sum of two hundred-dollars, which, upon her honest word, she would pay as soon as she had the money.

To this eloquent suggestion I answered (and I doubt if the true Abram Skinner could have answered better) by lamenting her difficulties, and assuring her I was in as great trouble as herself, not having a cent at command that I could call my own (the iron chest told another story, and there were divers handsome hundreds placed to my credit in three or four different banks); nevertheless I had a little money belonging to a friend, which I thought I might make so free as to lend to one of her excellent character and standing; but that would be taking a great responsibility on my shoulders, &c. &c., in terms which the reader can easily imagine; and I concluded by hinting, that if she had any plate or other valuables to deposite as a security, it would save her the trouble of giving her note, and the inconvenience such an instrument might prove to her, if my friend's necessities should compel him to throw it into the market.

The widow, delighted with my frankness, and penetrated by my friendliness, ran home, and returned with a basket of chattels to the value of perhaps three hundred and fifty dollars.

"Very good," said I; "you shall have the money, though I should have to pay for it myself."

"Sure," said she, "but you are a good obliging man, and I shall be much beholden: and sure, but I thought all pawnbrokers had golden balls at their doors."

"Madam," said I, "thank your good fortune that I am _not_ a pawnbroker. Had you gone to such a person you would have paid dear for your money, and perhaps lost your silver into the bargain. Now, supposing this silver to be worth three hundred dollars--"

"Three hundred lack-a-daisies!" said the old lady, "why, it cost more than four hundred dollars; for I remember the coffee-pot--"

"Yes, ma'am," said I; "that was the cost of making: I reckon the silver at about three hundred dollars, though that is a large allowance. Now, had you taken this to a pawnbroker, what do you think he would have loaned you on it?"

"To be sure, and I suppose; but I can't say."

"One hundred dollars, perhaps, if a moderate fellow," said I; "but _I_ am another sort of man; I scorn to take any advantage of any one. Yes," said I, feeling warm and virtuous, "I scorn them there fellows that take advantage, and grind down the poor to the last mite. I, Mrs.--, hum, ha, Mrs.--"

"Mrs. Smith," said the old lady, eying me with admiration.

"_I_, Mrs. Smith, will treat you in another way; I will let you have what you want--the full two hundred dollars, for the space of thirty days, and charge you but twenty-five dollars for the favour."

"Sure," said Mrs. Smith, "and that's dear."

"On the contrary, madam," said I, "it is but twelve and a half per cent. a month, whereas money will often fetch fifteen."

"Will it, indeed?" said the foolish widow; "and sure but you must know better than myself. Well, then, Mr. Skinner, let me have the two hundred dollars, and you shall have the plate in pawn."

"No, ma'am," said I, "none but a pawnbroker can do that. A gentleman like myself does this sort of thing in another manner; for were I to receive this silver as a pawn, you might prosecute me for it in court, and make me pay a fine. The way we do is this; I _buy_ the plate of you, for two hundred dollars, taking a receipt from you for that amount, and granting you, on my part, a written permission to purchase the same back again, this day month, for the sum of two hundred and twenty-five dollars."

"La!" said the old lady, "is that the way? But what if I should not get the money in a month?"

"Why, then," said I, with a look of benevolence, "why, then, I think I must give you a month longer."

"Sure and you are the best man in the world," said Mrs. Smith; "and you think my silver won't be in no danger? and you'll lock it up in some big iron chest? for thieves are quite thick already; and your paper to buy again will be just as good as a pawnbroker's certificate?"

I hastened to satisfy the old lady's mind on this and all other subjects. I then wrote out a receipt, which I caused her to subscribe, being a due acknowledgment on her part of having sold me certain specified articles of plate; after which I delivered her a paper, in which, without troubling myself to make any reference to the conveyance, I covenanted to sell her the same articles, at the price mentioned before, at the expiration of thirty days.

With this and the two hundred dollars which I now gave her, the foolish woman departed very well satisfied; and as for me, I actually rubbed my hands together with the delight of having made such a good bargain. I say again, old Skinner himself could not have managed the affair with greater address than myself; and, young as I was in his body, I felt as much satisfaction at having overreached a silly old woman, as ever a less avaricious man felt at deluding a young one. This was small game, to be sure, for a man who dabbled in stocks, and counted profits, not by dollars, but by hundreds and thousands; but, as I said before, Abram Skinner was a man of all work, who thought no gain small enough to be despised, and who cheated a single tatterdemalion with as much zeal as he would fleece a community.

The end of the bargain was this: in a month's time Mrs. Smith called on me again, but without money; whereupon I spoke to her with greater benevolence than before, assured her she need not be distressed, and renewed the engagement between us by adding twenty-five dollars (the interest upon the money advanced) to the sums specified in the conveyance and covenant; and the same amount I added at the expiration of the second month. And this course I intended to pursue for two months more, until the amount of interest should swell the purchase-money to three hundred dollars; after which I designed to close the bargain, and consider the silver fairly purchased.

If anybody supposes I treated the old woman ill--that I acted dishonestly, and even illegally, in the matter--all I have to say is, that I only did what Abram Skinner the shaver had done a thousand times before me, and what, I have no doubt, other worthy gentlemen of his tribe have done after me. He who rides with the devil must put up with his driving; and he who deals with his nephews must look for something warmer than burnt fingers.

The transaction with Mrs. Smith was a sample of divers others, begun and conducted on the same principles, though involving more momentous profits. The system of _forfeitures_, as practised by a skilful hand, is applicable to all species of property, and I practised it with great effect in the case of houses and lands, and the Lord knows what besides. The "pressure" continued long; and I think I should have made a handsome fortune in the course of the winter out of this single branch of my business alone, had not destiny arrested me in the midst of a prosperous career, and left the business to be settled by my administrators.