Part 3

'Hear you! Have I not heard you and believed you? Ay, I _have_. I was in my dotage; and you too, Kate, you listened and believed, did you not? Ah! girl, girl! a serpent charmed in Eden! But it's past now. I'll love you, Kate, though he do not. They said that gold was my God. They said that for gold I would barter everything; but they didn't know me. _He_ told you so too, Kate, did he not?--he told you that I'd sell you for _that_. He whispered tales of your father in your ear, until you became a renegade at heart; and _you_, my own child, plotted with a stranger to desert your home. _He_ told you that he loved you; and would make you his wife; did he not? Poor child! poor child! God help her! she knows no better! Ned Somers,' said he, turning to the young man, 'you must leave this house, and come here no more. My daughter is all I have to bind me to life, and I cannot spare her. You must go elsewhere to spread your web. For your vile designs upon her, may God forgive you--I never will!'

'Jacob Rhoneland,' said Somers, 'I have borne more from you than I would have taken from any other man. You are not now in a state to listen to reason, nor perhaps am I able just now to offer it; but you have said _that_ of me which I should be false to myself not to answer; and which I declare to be utterly untrue. I _do_ love your daughter; and love her well and honestly; and I would like to see the man, excepting yourself, who dare say otherwise. Some one has been lying to you; and can I but find him out, he shall pay for it. _You_, Kate, don't believe it?' said he, turning to the girl, who stood by, with blanched cheek, and the tears in her eyes.

'No, no, Ned; I do not; nor will father, when he's calm,' said she, taking the old man's hand. 'Some person has been slandering you to him; but he'll get over it soon.'

Rhoneland drew his hand hastily from her, and turning to Ned, said: 'Leave the house! I have already told you to do so. Will you wait until you are thrust from it? Begone, I say!'

'Go, go, Ned, for _my_ sake!' exclaimed Kate, pushing him toward the door. 'He'll never be right while you are here. Go, _dear_ Ned, go.'

'I can't go before I've told your father how matters stand.'

'No matter for that now,' said Kate, earnestly; 'I'll make all right; go, go!'

Half pushing, half persuading him, she finally induced him to leave the house.

'Friend Ned seems in a hurry,' said a voice in his ear, when he had gone but a hundred yards. 'Has sweet little Kate been unkind? Has she told you that she loved Michael Rust? Ha! ha! Or has old dad been crabbed? Ha! ha! A queer old boy that dad of hers, Ned; a queer old fellow; full of freaks! Do you know he hinted to me that he thought you had an eye on Kate, and wanted to run off with her? Wasn't that a good one, Ned? Ha! ha! It makes me laugh to think of it. He didn't know that Michael Rust was the fellow; that _he_ was the one to guard against.'

'I believe you,' said Ned, bitterly; 'I believe that Michael Rust is the one to guard against; and Jacob Rhoneland will find it out some day.'

'To be sure he will, to be sure he will!' said Rust. 'Yet the old fellow was afraid of you; _you_ Ned, _you_! He even hinted that your purposes were not _honest_. Some kind friend had been at work and filled his head with queer tales about you. And all the time he did'nt dream of me; and didn't know that it was _me_ that Kate was dying for. He'll find me his son-in-law yet, some day. I wish you would keep away from his house, Ned. To tell the truth, I'm jealous of you. For in confidence, Ned, I _do_ believe that Kate is a little of a coquette at heart; and I have often said to myself: 'Although I see nothing particularly kind in her manner to Somers, who knows what it may be when they're alone? I'm sure there's nothing in her actions, when others are present, to betray how kind and coaxing she is to me when we are alone. Ah! Ned; she is all tenderness in our moments of privacy. The last time I saw her she said that she respected you, but swore that she did not care the snap of a finger for you. God bless her for that! how happy it made me! how charming she looked! Ah! she's an angel! upon my soul I must go back and kiss her!'

Somers, chafing with fury at being thus beset, had walked on with a rapid step, while Rust kept pace with him, hissing his words in his ear; but as he uttered the last sentence, Rust turned away. As he did so, Somers caught him by the collar, and drawing him close to him, said:

'Michael Rust, I believe that every word you have just uttered is false, and a vile slander against as noble a girl as ever lived. I will not punish you as you deserve, because I promised Kate Rhoneland that I would not; but before you go let me tell you this: A greater liar and villain than yourself, never walked. Things are oozing out about you, which will make this city ring with your infamy. Tongues which have been tied by gold have found fear more powerful, and have spoken; and there are those tracking out Michael Rust's course, for the last few years, who will not let him rest till they have run him down. You're fond of figures of speech; there's one. Now go and kiss Kate Rhoneland, with what satisfaction you may!'

He flung him from him; and, without looking at him, turned off in a by street.

CHAPTER TENTH.

THE few words uttered by Somers, as he flung his tormentor from him, threw Michael Rust into a fit of profound abstraction. Pondering over his schemes, and wondering which particular one was about to fail; and yet so confident in his own sagacity and clear-sightedness, that he felt disposed to think failure impossible; he took his way to his own house. There, assuming the same costume which he usually wore when in his office, and which, in age, certainly added ten years to his appearance, he locked the door of his room, put the key in his pocket, and sallied into the street.

'If what he said be true,' muttered he, 'there must be a traitor. Him I can put my finger on; and first of all, _him_ will I punish; and now, for a trial of that new animal Kornicker. Bah!'

Had Mr. Kornicker overheard this allusion to himself, it is scarcely probable that his gratification would have been extreme; for admitting himself and all the rest of the human race, zoologically speaking, to be animals; even then, there was much in the tone of Michael Rust to indicate that Mr. Kornicker belonged to a genus distinct from and inferior to the human species in general; and this was a position against which there is little doubt that Mr. Kornicker would have contended manfully. Without pausing to reflect upon the justice or injustice of his observation, and in truth forgetting that he had made it, Rust took the shortest route to his office, whither, to explain what will follow, it may not be amiss to precede him.

From the day on which he had taken Kornicker into his service, he had not been at his office, nor had he met his new clerk, or seen him, or heard from him. In truth, many other matters pressing upon him, prevented his calling there; and although he did not forget that Kornicker was almost a stranger to him, for he forgot nothing, yet knowing that he could do no harm where he was, and that there was little to embezzle or steal, except the door-key, he in a great measure dismissed him from his thoughts, until he required his services. Although this matter dwelt thus lightly on the mind of Rust, it was the source of much profound thought and intense abstraction on the part of Kornicker. He had endeavored to learn something respecting Rust; and even formed an intimacy with 'the desperadoes,' for that purpose; and what little he learned there certainly did not make him more at ease; for even the most desperate of _them_ shook his head, and gave him a friendly caution 'to look sharp;' at the same time adding, though in less refined language, that Rust was 'a small colored man, but hard to masticate.' It was observed, however, that by degrees Mr. Kornicker's abstraction grew less and less, and his spirits rose. At times, unnatural sounds, such as loud laughter, and even songs, were heard to emanate from Rust's hitherto silent room; and in the dusk of the evening, dim figures were seen skulking to and from it; and in the day time, shabby-genteel men loitered carelessly through the entry, and after listening at the key-hole, gave a shrill whistle, which being answered from within, they dove into the room, and disappeared. At times, too, the clinking of knives and forks against crockery was heard from within; and on such occasions, the phantom of the small boy with a white cap on his head was seen to flit up and down the stairs, with a dish in his hand, or a bottle under his arm, always vanishing at Rust's office, or disappearing in the bowels of the refectory below.

But notwithstanding all these symptoms of returning vivacity, Mr. Kornicker's mind was far from tranquil on the subject of the mystery of his present situation.

'Fallen into the toils of a little old man,' said he to himself, as he sat, on the morning on which we open this chapter, in front of the fire, with his legs stretched at full length in front of him; the toe of one foot, supporting the heel of the other; of a little old man, with a red handkerchief tied round his head, a broad brimmed hat on the top of that, and a camblet cloak over his shoulders. 'It's too deep for me. I can't fathom it. The victim of a hideous compact, whereby I am decoyed into his service, to sit in a room eight feet by twelve, on a chair without a cushion, a yellow wooden chair, with four legs, and a back made of the most uneasy kind of timber, probably lignum-vitæ, and yet with no cushion; to wait for people who never come, eat without drinking, and submit to divers other small inconveniences; such as bringing up coal in a pail without a handle; kindling my own fire with damp wood, and snuffing sixpenny dips with a pair of tongs, one of whose feet is absent. There's something very mysterious about it--very. All I hope is, that this Mr. Rust is not the 'Old Boy.' That's all. I don't wish to speak disrespectfully of him: but I _do_ sincerely hope, for his own sake, that he isn't the 'Old Boy.' It would be bad for him, if he was. As for myself,' said he, drawing out his snuff-box, and snuffing with great absence of mind, 'it makes no difference; I'm used to it. I've been brought up in trying circumstances. I slept in a grocery sand-bin on the north corner of a street for a week. Not such a bad place either, in warm weather; but I was ousted by a tipsy gentleman, whom I found there one night. The tipsy gentleman was sick, too; and when tipsy gentlemen get sick, most people know what follows. The place was untenantable afterward. But _that_ was nothing to _this_; positively nothing. I knew what I was about then; _now_ I don't. I never met but one case in point with mine. It was that of the fellow who fell into the clutches of forty unknown women, and remained with them, feasted with them, and all that--they paying the shot, as in my case--until one morning they all came weeping, and wailing, and gnashing their teeth, to tell him that they were off by the first boat; and that he must stay there until they came back, and might do whatever he liked, and go wherever he chose, except into the stable. There 's no stable here, but I'm restricted in liquors; _that_ carries out the simile. The house-keeper handed him the keys, and he went jingling about, for forty days, with the keys hanging at his button-hole; his hands in his breeches pockets, whistling and yawning; locking and unlocking doors, and smelling flowers; eating apples, and pea-nuts, I suppose, although they were not specially mentioned, and poking his nose into all the odd corners. There the simile fits again; only it's soon got through with here, seeing that there 's only under the table and up the chimney to look, and I've done both. No matter; that chap wound up by having an eye knocked out; and I hope the joke won't be carried so far with me.'

Mr. Kornicker cut short his reflections and remarks; and sitting upright, pulled up his vest, and felt in the neighborhood of his watch-pocket. Suddenly recollecting, however, that he had left the article which belonged there in the safe-keeping of a friend, who, with a kindness worthy of all praise, not only took charge of it for him, but actually paid for the privilege of doing so; he pulled down his vest and said, 'he supposed that it was all right, and that _they_ would be here presently.' If his last remark applied to guests whom he expected, he was apparently correct in his surmise; for he had scarcely uttered it, when there was a single sharp knock at the door.

'Who's there?' demanded he, without starting.

'Open the door!' replied a voice from without.

'It isn't locked,' said Kornicker; and it might have been observed that there was a remarkable abatement of firmness in the tone of his reply.

In pursuance of this hint, the door opened, and in walked Michael Rust!

Mr. Kornicker, in the course of his checkered existence, had frequently found himself in positions in which he was taken dreadfully aback; but it is doubtful whether he had ever detected himself in a situation which threw him into a state of such utter and helpless consternation as his present one; for, relying on the continued absence of his employer, he had that day invited four particular friends 'to drop into the office,' and, as he had carelessly observed, 'to take potluck with him--a trifle or so; anything that should turn up.' This was the very hour; and here was Rust.

He made an unsuccessful effort to welcome his visiter. He got up, muttered something about 'unexpected pleasure,' looked vacantly round the room; rubbed his hands one over the other; made an attempt to smile, which terminated in a convulsive twitching of his lips; and finally sat down, with his intellect completely bewildered, and without having succeeded in any thing, except exciting the surprise and suspicion of Rust.

'There'll be hell to pay!' said he, communing with his own thoughts, 'there positively _will_; I know it; I see it, I feel it; I'm done up; no hope for me! _There_ comes one of them,' thought he, as a step deliberately ascended the stair; but it passed to the flight above. There was some relief in that; but it was only a respite. _Come_ they must! He wrung his hands, snuffed spasmodically, returned the box to his pocket, and took it out again instantly. 'What shall I do? What _shall_ I do? What the DEVIL shall I do?' exclaimed he, mentally.

Rust had spoken to him three times, but he had not heard a word. 'This is all very strange,' muttered Rust, looking about the room as if to seek some explanation. The first thing which attracted his attention was the fact that the two chairs which he had left in the office had by some odd process of multiplication increased to six.

'There are six chairs here,' said he, addressing his clerk, in a stern tone; 'where did they come from? Who are they for?'

Mr. Kornicker looked round, and smiled helplessly. 'Six? Oh, ay; one, two, three, four, five--six. So there _are_ six,' said he.

'Well?'

'Well; oh, _well_? Oh, yes, quite well, I thank you; very well,' said Mr. Kornicker, whose ideas were rapidly becoming of a very composite order, and who caught only the monosyllable, without exactly taking in its meaning.

'I'm afraid that Mr. Kornicker is lonely in the absence of his friend Michael Rust,' said Rust, with his usual sneer; 'that he finds this dull, dingy room too dreary for him; and has invited six chairs to keep him company, and cheer up his spirits.'

Kornicker made no reply; he could not, for he was stupefied by hearing another step ascending the stairs. This time it paused at the door, as if the visiter were adjusting his collar, and pulling down his wristbands; after which, a thinnish gentleman, dressed in a green coat, with wide skirts; white at the elbows, and polished at the collar, and pantaloons tightly strapped down, gray and glistening at the knees, and not a little torn at the pockets, sauntered carelessly in.

'Servant, Sir; servant, Sir;' said he, nodding to Rust, at the same time, advancing with a familiar air, and swinging in his hand a particularly dingy handkerchief. 'This, I suppose, is one of us. He's an old chip; but he may be come of a prime block.' The latter part of this remark was addressed to Kornicker; and terminated with a request, that he would 'do the genteel, and present him to his friend.' Kornicker, however, sat stock-still, looking in the grate, and evincing no signs of life, except by breathing rather hard.

'Ha! ha! Ned's gone again--brown study!' said the gentleman, winking at Rust, touching his own forehead, and at the same time extending his hand. 'It's his way. I suppose you're one of our social little dinner-party to-day?'

'Yes, oh, yes!' said Rust, quietly; for these words, and the six chairs, afforded an immediate solution of his difficulties. 'I dropped in; and being intimate with Ned, thought I'd stop.'

'So I supposed,' said the other. 'As Ned _won't_, I _will_. My name's Sludge, Mr. Thomas Sludge,' said he, extending his hand to Rust. 'Happy to make your acquaintance. Your name is--eh? eh?'

'Quite a common one; Smith; Mr. Smith,' replied Rust.

'Ha! ha! you're joking; but no--you _don't_ belong to that numerous family, though, do you? Eh? well; I thought from the cut of your eye, that you were an old quiz, and supposed, of course, you were joking.'

At the announcement of the name, Kornicker looked round with a vague hope that _he_ might have been mistaken; and that it was not Michael Rust who had thus interrupted his plans; but _there_ he stood. 'He's a dreadful reality!' thought he, shaking his head. 'He's no Smith. He's Michael Rust. God knows what he's going to do, I don't. If they come, I pity them. That's all I can do for them; but it's their affair; they must trust to their own resources, and the care of an overruling Providence. I suppose they'll survive it. If they don't, Rust will have to bury them.'

He was too much overwhelmed by what had already occurred, and by what was to come, to attempt to extricate himself from his difficulties. They had fallen upon him with a weight which was insupportable; and now, a ton or two more would make but little difference. They might mash him flat if they chose; he should not resist them.

In the mean time, Rust and Sludge became exceedingly sociable. They conversed on all topics, cracked their jokes, and were exceedingly merry on the subject of Kornicker and his employee, and of the tricks which were played upon that respectable personage.

'Ha! ha!' said Mr. Sludge, 'wouldn't he kick up a rumpus if he did but know what was going on here? The very idea of Rust arriving at this stage of knowledge, seemed so absurd that they laughed until the room rang.

It was not long before their number was increased by the addition of a short, square-built gentleman, with round cheeks and green spectacles, who was introduced by Mr. Sludge as 'Mr. Steekup, one of us.' He was followed by a thin fellow in elderly attire, and with a very red nose. This latter person was supported by a friend with very large whiskers, and a shaggy great-coat with huge pockets. The first of these two was presented as Mr. Gunter, and the last as Mr. Buzby. Each of these gentlemen, as they respectively entered, went up to Kornicker, and slapped him on the shoulder, at the same time saluting him with the appellation of 'my tulip,' or 'my old buck,' or 'my sodger,' or some other epithet of an equally friendly character; to all of which they received not a word in reply. But though Kornicker's bodily functions were suspended, his thoughts were wonderfully busy.

He felt that he was done for; completely, irremediably done for. He had an earnest wish, coupled with a hope, a very faint hope; a hope so vague and indefinable that it seemed but the phantom of one; that his guests would be suddenly seized with convulsions of an aggravated character, and die on the spot, or jump out of the window, or bolt up the chimney, or cut each other's throats, or melt into air. He did not care what, or which, or how, or when, or where. All his thoughts and wishes tended to one particular end; that was, their abrupt departure, in some sudden and decisive manner. But they evinced no disposition to avail themselves of either means of getting out of his way, of which he left them so liberal a choice. And to increase his misery, amidst them all sat Rust, with his head bound in his red silk handkerchief, bowing and smirking, and passing himself off as one of themselves; drawing out their secrets, and quizzing old Rust, and occasionally casting on his clerk an eye that seemed red-hot; cracking double-sided jokes, which made _them_ laugh, and took the skin off _him_; and calling him 'Ned,' and asking why he was dull, and why he didn't make himself at home as _he_ did; and whether he didn't think that old Rust would make 'a flare up,' if he should happen to drop in; and why he didn't ask old Rust to his dinners sometimes; and all in so pleasant a tone, that the guests swore he was a diamond of the first water, and Mr. Sludge hugged him on the spot.

Mr. Kornicker wondered if he was not dreaming; and whether Rust was in reality there, and whether he himself was not sitting in front of the fire sound asleep. It would be pleasant to wake up and find it so; but no, it could not be; people in dreams didn't laugh like these fellows. How _could_ they laugh as they did, when _he_ was in such a state! How little they understood the game that was going on! How they'd alter their tone, if they did! It was ridiculous; it was exceedingly ridiculous. He ought to laugh; he felt that he ought; but he wouldn't yet; the dinner was to come, and perhaps he might _then_; he didn't know; he couldn't say; he'd see about it. Hark! There was a thump against the wall below, and a jingling of spoons, and knives and forks, against crockery. Now for it! Another thump; another, accompanied by another jingle. He wondered whether the boy had spilt the gravy. He hoped he hadn't; but supposed he had. It made no difference. He wondered whether he'd brought the brandy; supposed he had; of _course_ he had. It only wanted _that_ to damn him! and of course he would be d--d. He always had been, and always would be; it was his luck. The person who was bringing the dinner stumbled again; but he didn't fall. 'No such good luck! If he had fallen, if he _only_ had fallen, and broke his neck, or smashed the dinner, or any thing, to prevent his reaching that door; but no; he was too sure-footed for that; any _other_ boy would have done so; but _he_ didn't. He reached the door, and saluted it with a hearty kick; at the same time informing the company that if they were hungry, he rather guessed they'd better open it, as his hands were full. Kornicker thought that _his_ hands were full too; and even had a faint idea of laughing at this play upon words; but the inclination passed off without his doing so. Michael Rust opened the door, and the boy came in. Kornicker knew it. He neither looked round nor moved; in fact, he closed his eyes; yet he _knew_ it--he _felt_ it. He had an innate perception that the boy was there, within three feet of him, bearing in his hands a large tray, with dishes, and a brandy bottle on it. And now the clattering commenced; and he was conscious that the boy was setting the table. What would be the end of all this; what _could_ be? After all, Michael Rust might be a jolly fellow, and he hadn't found it out; and perhaps he wanted to make him at home, and keep up the joke, to save his feelings. He would be glad to think so; but he didn't; no, no, he was certain that there was some devil's play going on.'