Chapter XLIX: Mr. Mahone

Ellen Post went down to the kitchen just after Boyce entered it with his basket of groceries, and there she found Robert conversing in a low, eager voice with the grocer’s clerk. As the two stood together, the girl remarked the wonderful likeness that existed between them, in form and color. Both were strong, and, if not tall, well built and active. Boyce was talking earnestly, and glanced around now and then to make sure that no one was listening. There was a look of triumph in his face, that Robert seemed to share, for he smiled broadly, while he listened, and laying his hand on the clerk’s shoulder, seemed to commend him for something he had done.

Ellen Post was impatient, and watched all this with irritation. She wished to speak with Robert, and was angry that he did not come forward the moment she entered the room.

“Mr. Mahone,” exclaimed the irate maid. “Mr. Mahone, I am waiting to speak with you!”

“Mahone,” repeated Boyce, with a sly wink at the footman. “She might spell that with five letters, and begin them with a B.”

Boyce spoke in the lowest possible voice, but Robert checked him severely, almost whispering.

“Hush, you young rascal. Don’t you know that women have sharp ears. Can I never learn you to be prudent.”

“About the time I learn you to be fair,” answered Boyce, a little savagely. “But, remember, this time you’ve got to toe the mark. I don’t mean to do all the work, and feed on the crumbs. So put that in your pipe, and smoke it, Bob.”

“Mr. Mahone!”

“Yes, Miss Post, the minute I have settled up with this fellow. He’s no more idea of figures than a donkey. Only I notice he always makes the mistake on his side. As I recommended him here, you understand, it’s my place to see that everything is on the square.”

Ellen Post gave her French cap a toss that set all its ribbons in quick motion, and would have left the room in high dudgeon, but for the business that she had in hand. As it was, she marched up to the young men, and broke up their conference at once.

“You stay here. We may have something to say to you,” she said, addressing Boyce, as if she had been that female tyrant, Elizabeth, and he a servant in her path. “Mr. Mahone will tell you if you are wanted. So wait.”

Boyce laughed broadly, and took a seat in the kitchen, while Ellen Post and Robert went to the servants’ parlor, and shut themselves in, the maid observing that the cook was always prying about, and, this thing being serious, they must have no listeners. With this caution, she seated herself on the hair-cloth sofa, and invited him, with her eyes, to take the vacant place by her side.

Robert, nothing loth, took the seat, and his arm crept along the back, until it almost embraced the long, thin waist of the lady’s maid, who looked around sharply to make sure that it was not indecorously near.

“Mr. Mahone!”

“My angel! My—my——”

“Never mind, Robert; this is business. I despise mixing up things.”

“Business is pleasure, where you are concerned, Miss Post.”

“That is just what I hope it will lead to in the end, for it’s a great thing, I can tell you.”

“Indeed! Well, that don’t astonish me! You was born to great things, Miss Post. No mistake about that!”

“Which I am ready to share,” answered Ellen, “for it will take more than one to earn five thousand dollars!”

“Five thousand dollars! Why, Ellen, you take away my breath.”

“It took away mine, at first; but now I am ready for work. Are you?”

“Am I ready to make five thousand dollars! Try me, that’s all.”

“Robert, you know a boy by the name of Laurence. He comes here with groceries now and then.”

“Yes, I know all about him. He’s in the same store with Boyce.”

“He’s got a sister?”

“Yes. I’ve seen her. A stunning girl.”

“That girl has set her foot on Miss Spicer!”

“What! There must be some mistake about that; they don’t travel the same road.”

“No mistake at all. I know what I’m saying. More than that, she has offended the madam, who is bitter against her.”

“You don’t say so!”

“She is handsome.”

“Stupendously so. Her face fairly took me off my feet.”

“Mr. Mahone?”

Mr. Mahone dropped his arm, and almost leaped to his feet; a whole volley of small shot rolled off in that one exclamation.

“I beg ten thousand pardons, Miss Post. I was speaking of the opinion others might have. As for me, I have eyes only for one woman, this side of sunrise, and that woman is Ellen Post.”

“Mr. Mahone, sit down. It is hard when the heart is wounded to stick to business; but stick we must.”

“Well, Ellen, I don’t object. You were speaking of Miss Laurence. I know all about her!”

“But how?” demanded Ellen, forgetting business again, in a sharp fit of jealousy. “Mr. Mahone, do you visit that creature?”

“Me? me? Do you think I haven’t better taste than Mr. Ivon? He visits her; but, as for me, I’d rather be excused, not being necessitated to go away from home.”

“This is not business,” exclaimed Ellen, growing practical, as her jealousy was appeased. “The long and the short of it is, this girl has been forcing herself into the company of her betters, which neither the madam or Miss Spicer will stand. Mr. Ivon has taken to her in a way quite ridiculous; so has another person of quite as much importance. The ladies don’t want her to cross their path again. We must see that she don’t.”

“But how?”

“The Laurence family, root and branch, must be brought to disgrace. Being poor as Job’s cat isn’t enough, for some rich people have taken them up. She must be so covered with shame, that no one will have the courage to speak to her in the street.”

“But how is it to be done. We might get up a big scandal; but people are getting shy of believing such things, when they come from the basement; but for that, I am capital at building castles out of card-houses. In our line now, I could work wonders against any girl——”

“Not any girl, Mr. Mahone,” broke in Ellen, with a hot burst of pride. “There are persons that slander cannot reach!”

“I meant any girl like that, if she belonged to our spear, Miss Ellen. Of course, there are women as high as the stars. Having a sample before me, I can say that, and defy contradiction.

“The girl is awful proud of her family; poor but honest, you know,” said Ellen, once more mollified to the business point.

“Honest! My eyes! that is good! Why, Boyce was just telling me that the boy has been robbing like sixty—hand in hand with a lot of burglars. It’s a secret; but the detectives are on his track now.”

CHAPTER. L.
A BARGAIN AT LAST.

“You don’t say so! Oh, Mr. Mahone, this is news! Why, just as like as not, she’s leagued in with him. That whole family may be a nest of thieves.”

“A nest of thieves—and she among them, I shouldn’t wonder!”

“Prove it; fasten it upon them; have the thing made public, and our work is done.”

“_Would_ that be enough?”

“Certainly. Could any girl creep out of a nest of thieves, into such society as the madam and Miss Spicer move in? I should think not.”

“Would it be enough to prove the boy guilty?” questioned Robert, thoughtfully.

“No: she will want more than that.”

“And even there we may fail. I have it—I have it! Don’t put yourself to any more trouble. The whole thing has come into my head at once. I only hope you are as sure of the money, as I am of earning it. Five thousand you said?”

“Five thousand!”

“Money down?”

“Money down!”

“But the division. We may as well start fair, you know, this being business and nothing else.”

Ellen Post looked down, and began to roll up her cap-string with both hands; then she unrolled it, and smoothed out the ribbon. Something was doubtless in her mind, that she did not know how to put into speech. At last she faltered out,

“Would there be any need of a division? I thought—I thought, perhaps, that you might prefer the whole, which is a fortune for two young persons just starting life in a liquor store, say, or a first-class boarding-house, where a real lady is wanted for the head of the table.”

“Oh!”

Ellen looked up anxiously. What did that emphatic “oh” mean. Had Mahone only thought of this for the first time?

The face she cast her timid eyes upon was changing rapidly; first, a red flame darted up to the roots of his ruddy hair, then the color melted away, and a slow pallor stole over it, while a thoughtful and sinister light crept into the golden-green eyes. Ellen grew fearfully uneasy. The thousands she coveted would lose half their value, unless Mahone himself was counted in.

“You say ‘oh,’ as if I had hinted at something disagreeable, Mr. Mahone? If so, let us drop the subject. Other people can be found.”

Mahone started, for the girl spoke in bitter earnest.

“Other people, my dear?”

“Miss Post, if you please.”

“Don’t be so cold, so cruel! If I said ‘oh,’ it was because a prospect of happiness broke upon me, that took away my breath.”

Here Mahone seized the hand which was lifted to the cap-string again, and repeated the naughty word oh, oh, oh, half a dozen times between the kisses he lavished upon it; but, strange to say, the obnoxious syllable seemed rather pleasant to her than otherwise this time. Circumstances alter cases, you know.

“To think that I shall have a creature like this, and five thousand dollars, all in a breath. I cannot believe it. If a fortune-teller had foretold it, I should have set her down as a rank impostor, and refused to pay her fee. But now, tell me, my Ellen, _is_ it real? Not the money. I don’t care the snap of my finger for that! But is it possible that you love me?”

“Love you, Robert? Mr. Mahone, I mean!”

“Oh, call me Robert; do call me Robert!”

“Well, I will! You asked if I loved you? I who never lifted admiring eyes to another man; had you no eyes to read mine, no heart to hear how mine was beating like a—a trip-hammer against my side? Did you never suspect?”

“I never dared to hope; but now—now I am the happiest man alive! You will not talk of other people after this.”

There was a tone of anxiety in this last question quite as sincere as the protestations he had made; but Ellen did not observe it.

“I shall talk nor think of no one but you, Robert.”

Some one knocked at the parlor-door, rather sturdily, and broke up this pleasant scene, which might have lasted for hours, but for that. Mahone started up, and opened the door, where he found Boyce flushed with impatience.

“I thought you was never coming out,” he said, rudely enough. “I have got business to attend to, and can’t sit waiting here. If you’ve got any more to say, say it now.”

“I’ll walk with you, Boyce,” answered Robert, “if Miss Post will excuse me.”

Miss Post bowed with condescension, and the two young men went into the street together.

That night a woman who lived in a tall tenement house not very far from Smith’s grocery, was surprised by the entrance of two men, with whom she was doubtless on terms of great domestic intimacy, for she came out of her bedroom half dressed, and a little cross, for she had been working hard all day, and dropped to sleep while hushing the child upon the bed she had found no time to make. Something that the men proposed made her angry, for she protested, and had fierce words with the tallest of her visitors, who rudely ordered her to be silent, and go back to her child. With some grumbling she obeyed him.

After that, these men came up and down the numerous flights of stairs, again and again, carrying burdens on their shoulders. Then a wagon drove off, and, for an hour or two, the same men were moving like shadows around the house where the Laurence family lay sleeping.