CHAPTER VI.

A MYSTERIOUS COMMISSION.

Brown-Street, New York, is not a savoury locality. Although it is situated in the heart of the city, lying midway between the palatial splendour of the 'up-town' domestic residences and the enormous blocks of buildings forming the 'down-town' commercial establishments; though it runs parallel with, and at no great distance from, the famous Broadway; and though it has in its rear a magnificent square, where are to be found some of the grand old-fashioned roomy mansions which by their size and substantiality might well put the gimcrack erections of Fifth-avenue to the blush, yet is Brown-street a place of 'no 'count.'

The houses are for the most part two-storied buildings of the shabbiest description; the iron railings which should guard the 'stoop' or flight of steps leading to the doors are generally wanting, having been extracted feloniously for the purpose of sale, or broken up and converted into handy weapons of attack and defence by the Hibernian residents of the colony. The street-doors are but seldom closed, standing three or four inches open, but creaking furiously when further demands are made upon them, as though they had conceded all they meant to give; the windows of the first-floors are uniformly furnished with outside Venetian shutters, which, no matter what may be the time of year, are generally closed during the morning, while in the afternoon the passer-by can discern through them the half-dressed figures of frowsy women and girls, who have no scruple about entering into conversation or indulging in humorous repartee.

What the second-floor contained, none save those who have made their way into such penetralia (among which number I am not one) can say, but there is no doubt as to the purposes to which the underground cellars are applied. These are lager-beer saloons, dram-shops, whisky-stores, in some instances pretended billiard-halls or pistol-galleries, but in every case pandering to the vilest tastes of degraded humanity.

Stumble down these steep, broken, slippery steps and you stumble into Hades, you plunge head foremost into the infernal regions. Here, for the gratification of his countrymen, Max Heilbronn has opened a German gehenna, where Schinken and Blutwurst, dried and highly-seasoned Lachs, provoke the thirst of the Teutons, and induce them to wind up with something far stronger than the mild and insipid lager-beer with which they commence their potations. There Tim O'Dwyer, to insure the happiness of his compatriots, unfurled the green flag over the 'Ould Ireland' store, strewed the stained and battered tables with the latest received numbers of the _Bloody Pike_, the _Patriot's Vitriol Bottle_, and other cheerful publications, and provided a stock of Bourbon and rye, after the consumption of which his customers would clear the floor and betake themselves to dancing jigs, breaking heads, biting each other's noses off, and other national pastimes.

The street itself, like the majority of the streets of the sort in New York, is strewn with garbage and refuse of every description; no need for its inhabitants to copy the example of their more respectable neighbours, and nightly put forth the barrow filled with the cinders and sweepings of the day; for what the Brown-street denizens have to get rid of, they adopt a more easy way with, and throwing it into the middle of the street, there let it lie. The only one portion of the road which is kept at all decent is the track of the horse-cars, which enormous lumbering vehicles permeate a portion of the street, and by their noise, the cracking of their drivers' whips, and the jangling of their bells attached to the horses, dispel some of the monotony which settles down on the neighbourhood during the daytime.

Some days after Trenton Warren's interview with Helen Griswold, and late in the afternoon, just when the early spring sun had withdrawn his brightness from the world, and the keen savage wind, sweeping through the wide thoroughfares, had reminded men that the reign of winter could scarcely be called at an end, a motley company was assembled in one of the Brown-street cellars, known to its frequenters as Naty Underwood's. A fat man Naty Underwood, with a round face and pendulous cheeks, little thin slits of eyes, and an upturned inquisitive nose; altogether not unlike a pig, whence probably the playful designation 'Porky' by which he is known to his familiars; a reserved man given to much quiet expectoration, a skilful concoctor of drinks, but always in a quiet manner and as unlike the conventional idea of a 'bar-keeper' as possible.

Yet bar-keeping was Naty Underwood's trade, and by the exercise of it he lived. That dark smoke-discoloured saloon, whose original gaudily-stencilled walls now bore huge blots and stains, caused in some places by damp, in others by the sudden outburst of effervescent drinks, was his whisky-store; those long-necked labelled bottles on the wooden counter before him were his stock-in-trade, and the men lounging around were his customers.

Most of these latter, who belonged to that indescribable class of shabby-genteel people so common in New York--people who seem to have no recognised mode of living, who are thin, starved, and ragged, and yet always seem to have enough money to purchase a drink or to pay for a five-cent ride in the cars--most of these _habitués_ of the saloon seem known to each other. At the end of the room, however, and just within the swing door by the bottom of the steps, was one who was evidently a stranger; a tall thin man, with a hard round glazed hat pressed down over a mass of tangled hair, and with a thick full beard. He was dressed in a rough short pea-jacket with huge horn buttons, and coarse blue-serge trousers, and looked like the second or third mate of an English collier. He sat with one hand leaning on the table and with his hat pulled well down over his eyes, but from time to time, from under the shade of its broad stiff brim, he looked sharply round at the assembled company as though he half anticipated interruption or attack, or glanced impatiently at the door as though expecting some one whose arrival had been unreasonably postponed.

Unquestionably, this stranger's appearance at Naty's aroused much curiosity amongst the ordinary frequenters of the saloon. There was a tendency amongst them to resent what they considered intrusion, and a chance dropper-in to their charmed circle; though this was a feeling which found no favour with the host, who was only desirous of increasing the number of his guests; and on the present, as well as on several previous occasions, sharp though low muttered contentions had passed between him and them on the subject. Questions as to what the stranger might want there, what a Johnny Bull was crowding into those diggings for, and why Naty didn't take upon himself to 'snake him out of that,' were all met by the bar-keeper with the reply that it was 'none of their business.'

A hint from long, Abe Stevens that he didn't pan out upon Johnny Bulls, and another from wiry Zeek Grimes that he didn't freeze to dock wallopers, were also thrown away upon Naty, and it seemed probable that the landlord would have been called to account even if the comfort of the guests had not been interfered with, had not a clattering on the steps and the swinging open of the door diverted public attention.

These noises were followed by the entrance of a man who, after casting a rapid glance round the room, in b and exchanging a scarcely perceptible sign with the stranger in the sailor's dress, walked up to the bar amid universal signs of recognition and welcome, and clapped his long lean hand into the fat moist palm of Naty Underwood.

A low blackguard-looking fellow this, with his hang-dog air and the shifty furtive glance out of his deep-set eyes; his cheeks were thin and hollow, his unfringed lips bloodless and closely set together; there was nothing of the rough about his physique; no jowl or jaw or lowering cranium, no bull neck; washed and decently dressed he might have passed muster as an ordinary citizen, but now his clothes were of antiquated cut and shiny with grease, his boots broken and bulging, his battered hat stuck on the top of his narrow thin head. That he was known to all, and popular as well, there could be little doubt, for the landlord gripped his hand with friendly warmth, and his entrance was received with cries of 'Hullo, Eph!' and 'Bully for you!' These salutations seemed rather to disconcert the new arrival, who glanced doubtingly to the corner where the sailor was seated; then, after ordering a hot whisky-punch, made his way towards him and took his seat beside him.

'You seem a powerful favourite here,' said the sailor sneeringly, in between his teeth. 'Bully for you and be hanged to it! What did you bring me here for? You knew I wanted to be quiet and unobserved; why did you name for our meeting this place, where you are apparently as well known as a nigger minstrel and as much thought of?'

The man was at first taken aback by this unexpected attack, but soon recovered himself.

'What place should I have named?' said he, in very much the same tone as the sailor had used. 'It is a pity I didn't propose to meet you at the Brevoort House, or in the hall of the Union Club; they would have been pleased to see me there, wouldn't they?' he added, glancing down at his clothes. 'I can't face the music right away, even if you can. I know this to be a safe and quiet place, where we can have our pow-wow in peace, and that is why I brought you here.'

There was something defiant in the air with which he regarded his companion across the table. Perhaps this was the influence of the whisky-punch, which had been brought to him while he was speaking, and of which he took a large gulp.

'Dry up,' said the sailor savagely; 'I don't want any more excuses. I told you to find a place where we could talk without having our conversation listened to, and you say you have done so in bringing me here.'

'And I repeat it,' said the man. 'There was no possibility of your taking me to a respectable house, therefore it devolved upon me to bring you to a crib like this. I should not have proposed it,' he added, dropping his voice, 'if you had been in your old style, but like this'--and he laid his hand lightly on the sailor's rough pea-jacket--'it is right enough.'

'I don't see it,' said the sailor gruffly.

'You never do see anything unless it answers your own purpose,' said the man with a familiar laugh, 'and then it's astonishing how clear your sight becomes. This is how it is: You're a sailor, you see--may be mate of a liner--may be attached to one of the big steam companies--and you have got something you want to dispose of something that you have not paid any duty on, perhaps something that has been handed over to you by a passenger who left the other side under a sort of cloud, and he could not conveniently move it ashore himself--you want to dispose of it as I say, and Eph Jenkins has been recommended to you, and you have arranged to meet Eph Jenkins here; the boys round here know Eph, and will pretty soon guess that that is the sort of business you and he have together.'

`That is extremely satisfactory,' sneered the sailor, pushing back from his forehead some of the overhanging hair which seemed to inconvenience him, and gazing hard at his companion; 'you are still living the same kind of life then?'

'Did you expect me to have been made Secretary to the Treasury, or to have become mayor of New York?' asked the other.

`No,' said the sailor quietly, 'I didn't know but that even a greater change might have befallen you. I thought perhaps you might have become honest.'

'No,' said the man, with a short laugh, 'you didn't think that, or you would not have summoned me to do some work for you. Honest!' he cried, dropping his voice to a low hissing whisper, 'what have such as I, or you, for the matter of that, to do with honesty? I was honest once, but in those days I could have been of no service to you. It is only since I became the degraded brute I am that I fell within your clutches, was made your tool, and employed by you to do your dirty work.'

'For such, let me remark, you have been duly paid.'

'Paid!' cried the man. 'I have received money with which I have bought more whisky, in the hope of making myself drunk, and cheating myself into forgetfulness of the times when I was decent and respectable; money which has kept me from starving, and rendered me available for whatever you might order me to do.'

'Exactly,' said the sailor; 'you have a command of virtuous indignation which would obtain for you the greatest applause at the Bowery, Mr. Jenkins, and extort a perfect ovation of pea-nuts, but I confess you are to me most pleasing when practical. You have done work for me--dirty work you are pleased to call it--and have been paid for it, and how you spent your money was, of course, no affair of mine. Now, as I have already explained to you, I have some very important work to which you must devote your very best energies. If you carry it through successfully--and you are perfectly able to do so if you refrain from drink and one or two other little weaknesses--I shall make it my business to see that your future is provided for. If, on the contrary, by any negligence of yours you fail, I shall use such hold as I have over you in the opposite direction. You comprehend me?'

'Perfectly,' said the man, who had dropped his air of bravado; 'what am I to do?'

'You have here,' said the sailor, taking from his inner breast-pocket a tolerably thick packet, 'a letter of instructions, written out in the fullest possible detail. There is nothing you can want to know that you will not find herein. I may, however, tell you at once, that the service I impose upon you requires you to leave New York; it may be many weeks before you are able to return. Under the circumstances, however, in which you are now situated,' he said, looking around him with an air of disgust, 'you will be rather pleased at the chance of getting away. It isn't a bad billet, you will find. You are to live like a gentleman among gentlemen, but it will require great discretion on your part, and especially abstinence from that;' and he lightly touched the empty glass on the table.

'I understand,' said Jenkins; 'and you may depend upon my being careful. And if I pull it off all right, you will keep to your promise?'

'You never knew me break my word yet, either in reward or punishment,' said the sailor. 'By the way, do you retain that old accomplishment, the exhibition of which on your part first brought us into contact--I mean the power of successfully imitating my handwriting?'

'I think so,' said Jenkins, hanging his head.

'That's right,' said the sailor; 'you may find it useful in this adventure. Now, as regards money. Here,' handing him a roll of dollar bills, 'is some to carry you on for the present. I don't at all imagine it will be enough, as you are by no means to stint yourself; and when you require more, you will find an address in the letter I have given you, to which you are to write for it. Be sure not to write to me, as I may probably be away from New York.'

'I understand,' said Jenkins, 'perfectly.'

'Then I don't think there is any reason for our stopping any longer in this delightful tavern,' said the sailor, rising.

When they reached the top of the steps and were in the open street, he turned round, and giving Jenkins his hand, said:

'Good-night. Be sharp and prudent in this matter for your own sake. And, by the way, from that letter of instructions there is only one detail omitted--bear it well in mind. It is this: that when I direct you to go to Norfolk I shall mean Chicago.'