Part 48

“And he did not say where he was going?”

“No'me.”

“Is he not sometimes at home in the daytime?”

“No'me.”

“And what time does he usually come home in the evening?”

“Don't know. After I've gone, I guess.”

Edith hesitated whether she should leave a card or a note, but she decided not to do either, and ordered the cabman to take her to Pearl Street, to the house of Fletcher & Co.

Mr. Fletcher, the senior partner, was her cousin, the son of her father's elder brother, and a man now past sixty years. Circumstances had carried the families apart socially since the death of her father and his brother, but they were on the most friendly terms, and the ties of blood were not in any way weakened. Indeed, although Edith had seen Gilbert Fletcher only a few times since her marriage, she felt that she could go to him any time if she were in trouble, with the certainty of sympathy and help. He had the reputation of the old-fashioned New York merchants, to whom her father belonged, for integrity and conservatism.

It was to him that she went now. The great shop, or wholesale warehouse rather, into which she entered from the narrow and cart-encumbered street, showed her at once the nature of the business of Fletcher & Co. It was something in the twine and cordage way. There were everywhere great coils of ropes and bales of twine, and the dark rooms had a tarry smell. Mr. Fletcher was in his office, a little space partitioned off in the rear, with half a dozen clerks working by gaslight, and a little sanctum where the senior partner was commonly found at his desk.

Mr. Fletcher was a little, round-headed man, with a shrewd face, vigorous and cheerful, thoroughly a man of business, never speculating, and who had been slowly gaining wealth by careful industry and cautious extension of his trade. Certain hours of the day--from ten to three--he gave to his business. It was a habit, and it was a habit that he enjoyed. He had now come back, as he told Edith, from a little holiday at the sea, where his family were, to get into shape for the fall trade.

Edith was closeted with him for a full hour. When she came out her eyes were brighter and her step more elastic. At sundown she reached home, almost in high spirits. And when she snatched up the boy and hugged him, she whispered in his ear, “Baby, we have done it, and we shall see.”

One night when Jack returned from his now almost aimless tramping about the city he found a letter on his table. It seemed from the printing on the envelope to be a business letter; and business, in the condition he was in--and it was the condition in which he usually came home--did not interest him. He was about to toss the letter aside, when the name of Fletcher caught his eye, and he opened it.

It was a brief note, written on an office memorandum, which simply asked Mr. Delancy to call at the office as soon as it was convenient, as the writer wished to talk with him on a matter of business, and it was signed “Gilbert Fletcher.”

“Why don't he say what his business is?” said Jack, throwing the letter down impatiently. “I am not going to be hauled over the coals by any of the Fletchers.” And he tumbled into bed in an injured and yet independent frame of mind.

But the next morning he reread the formal little letter in a new light. To be sure, it was from Edith's cousin. He knew him very well; he was not a person to go out of his way to interfere with anybody, and more than likely it was in relation to Edith's affairs that he was asked to call. That thought put a new aspect on the matter. Of course if it concerned her interests he ought to go. He dressed with unusual care for him in these days, breakfasted at the cheap restaurant which he frequented, and before noon was in the Fletcher warehouse in Pearl Street.

He had never been there before, and he was somewhat curious to see what sort of a place it was where Gilbert carried on the string business, as he used to call it when speaking to Edith of her cousin's occupation. It was a much more dingy and smelly place than he expected, but the carts about the doors, and the bustle of loading and unloading, of workmen hauling and pulling, and of clerks calling out names and numbers to be registered and checked, gave him the impression that it was not a dull place.

Mr. Fletcher received him in the little dim back office with a cordial shake of the hand, gave him a chair, and reseated himself, pushing back the papers in front of him with the air of a very busy man who was dropping for a moment one thing in order to give his mind promptly to another.

“Our fall trade is just starting up,” he said, “and it keeps us all pretty busy.”

“Yes,” said Jack. “I could drop in any other time--”

“No, no,” interrupted Mr. Fletcher; “it is just because I am busy that I wanted to see you. Are you engaged in anything?”

“Nothing in particular,” replied Jack, hesitating. “I'd thought of going into some business.” And then, after a pause: “It's no use to mince matters. You know--everybody knows, I suppose--that I got hit in that Henderson panic.”

“So did lots of others,” replied Mr. Fletcher, cheerfully. “Yes, I know about it. And I'm not sure but it was a lucky thing for me.” He spoke still more cheerfully, and Jack looked at him inquiringly.

“Are you open to an offer?”

“I'm open to almost anything,” Jack answered, with a puzzled look.

“Well,” and Mr. Fletcher settled back in his chair, “I can give you the situation in five minutes. I've been in this business over thirty years--yes; over thirty-five years. It has grown, little by little, until it's a pretty big business. I've a partner, a first-rate man--he is in Europe now--who attends to most of the buying. And the business keeps spreading out, and needs more care. I'm not as young as I was I shall be sixty-four in October--and I can't work right along as I used to. I find that I come later and go away earlier. It isn't the 'work exactly, but the oversight, the details; and the fact is that I want somebody near me whom I can trust, whether I'm here or whether I'm away. I've got good, honest, faithful clerks--if there was one I did not trust, I wouldn't have him about. But do you know, Jack,” it was the first time in the interview that he had used this name--“there is something in blood.”

“Yes,” Jack assented.

“Well, I want a confidential clerk. That's it.”

“Me?” he asked. He was thinking rapidly while Mr. Fletcher had been speaking; something like a revolution was taking place in his mind, and when he asked this, the suggestion took on a humorous aspect--a humorous view of anything had not occurred to him in months.