The Lights o' Gotham; or, The Gilded Villain — page 7: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

at \ - 4 wea se <a > ee — ct " + og? Te ina . < ” e é.*4 4 ‘ “> 5 * vi @ : ° down and open the door.” ‘You vont to see me, eh?” said the dealer, in a suspicious - peared up the stairs with it. - utes. ‘*He! vot you vont?” he asked. for? Der’s nodding here for nobody.” “IT want to see you, Mr. Levy,” replied Baxter. tone. ‘* Vot you vont to see me for, at dis hour in de night? You petter go vay an’ come back in de mornin’. I'm an honest man, and dond see peoples in de night.” ‘*T must see you at once, on business.” At the word business the old man pricked up his ears. ‘“‘ All right, mister,” he said, ‘‘I vill be down in one minute.” He disappeared from the window, and in a few minutes later there was a sound of enough unbolting of bars to give entrance to a fortress, then the door opened, and the dealer, but half- dressed and with an old gown on, ushered Baxter into the store. He had dimly lit the gas, and the faint light gave a grotesque appearanee to the many-hued wearing apparel and the other thousand and one objects with which the narrow, low-ceilinged place was overstocked. Baxter laid the still sleeping child on a heap of clothes on the counter and gave the dealer a twenty-dollar gold-piece, before the latter could recover from his surprise at seeing the babe. ‘IT believe you know me, Mr. Levy,” Baxter then said, at the same time closing the door of the store, so that the light should not pénetrate into the street. The storekeeper gazed keenly at him for a moment, and then replied: ‘“‘T know your face. You haf peen here pefore; but you come not any more so much; but Idon’t remember me your name.” ‘*’'That’s because I never told it to you,” grimly replied Baxter. ~ **Vot you ring mine bell ** Come THE LOG CABIN LIBRARY. 1 sides, as long as he was paid for his services, it was none of his business. ‘* You vish to disguise your face?”’ he asked, ‘‘I am an artist in dot line. I kin do it peautifully, und I haf every kind of clothes to match. Vot you vont?” Baxter deliberated a moment, and then said: “I would like to appear like some wealthy Californian, say, just come from the West.”’ ‘‘T haf it. You are a big sheep raiser in California, you haf your big estates oud dere, und makes your millions, vhich you now come in New York to lose in Wall street. Dey all do dot.” ‘* That’s just what I want,” exclaimed Baxter, gratified. ‘* You shave off your beard,’’ continued the storekeeper, ‘‘und pull down your mustache, den you brown up your face like vos the sun, you know, den you vear a colored shirt, mit a silk handkerchief around your neck, a velvet jacket, und pants vot come in your top-boots; you haf a diamond pin in your sbirt- bosom, und a diamond ring on your finger, you carry a vhip in your hand, und den you look yust like you vos com’ mit de fust train from California, und your own brudder dond know you.” ‘‘That’s it, exactly! Can you fix me up in that way?” ‘* Dem comes purty high. Mit de diamonds und all thrown in?” ‘* How high?” ‘Von thousand dollars.” ‘All right. Get to work on me at once.” ‘* He must have made a big haul,”’ muttered the dealer. ‘I vos grazy not to sharge him more. I gits square on him on the diamonds anyvay. Yust valk in de back room, if you blease,”’ he added, aloud. He opened a door behind the counter, and ushered his visitor |into a sort of sitting-room, which, probably, had before been ‘‘T lose money on vot you sell me. It vos such poor stuff.” | the scene of many similar transformations as was now going to He looked at Baxter’s shabby attire and then at the gold-piece | take place therein. in his hand, and scratched his head in perplexity; he could not reconcile the two together.”’ Baxter noticed the look and smiled. sold you his last decent suit, and got these rags from you in exchange, is able to give you gold? Well, I am able; how, is none of your business. Do what I want, and there’s more where that came from.”’ ‘* Pizness is pizness,” returned the dealer, with a sly wink, an’ mum’s de word. Vot is it yon vant?” «First, I want you to keep this young one—it’s mine—for a few days until I can send for her. But no one must know that she is here. You understand ?”’ “T understand,” returned Mr. Levy. ‘‘ Vota peautiful shild it is,” he added, as he gazed at the sleeping babe’s features. ‘Ah, she will preak many a man’s heart ven she becomes a young lady. I vill keep ber like she vos my own flesh and plood. My shildren are all married und gone, und my wife Rachel will love her like she vos her own baby. She knows how to keep mum, too, you kin bet on dot. I vill bring the leedle dear up to her now, und den we kin go on mit our pizness.”’ The old man took up the child as gently as a nurse,and Gisap- He returned at the end of five min- ‘‘She is sleeping in de leedle cradle vhere my own shildren slept ven dey vos babies,” he said, ‘‘und my wife is rocking her _ yust so nice as never vos. Ve vill take good care of her.’’ “That’s all right!” exclaimed Baxter, impatiently. ‘The next and more important, thing is, that I must havea dis- guise.” The dealer nodded his head.* He suspected, if he did not know, that the man before him had committed some crime, but he was too shrewd to betray his suspicions by a question. Be- : . - ~ ‘ » : fs a7 : »” Z f=, * i 7S ee Le © eed ae a ie os Wy lat A's ~ ay sere - 2 °* <* P, " Gila wT | > .*, { - ri ' ¢ M ¢ a - - . * ‘ Fathe ok Loo _£ 7 ¥ . ms Ap oe eae ve oe a a te ; ; ; ~~ . ir. pot ee) ye ad ’ a a fe * wa oo 4 ~ sa <! fe @ : - - . bs ‘yuo & a a ee, of Sas ue ihe ) = <i rss Any ) aN . “A a Pe =" , . gs eee " 7 ad ‘ * He bade Baxter take a seat in a chair, and having produced a shaving-cup and razor, put an apron around him and went | through the tonsorial operation with all the skill of a perfect ‘*You wonder,” he said, ‘‘ how a poor wretch like me, who) barber. Then opening a box which contained a whole collec- _ tion of chemical preparations, he took out some burnt sienna, and so artistically spread it over his visitor’s face, that the facial expression of the latter was entirely changed, and he looked as if he had passed all Lis life-time in the open air under an almost tropical sun. We need not detail the rest of the transformation. It is suffi- cient to state that in less than half an hour it was all complete, and as Mr. Levy had declared, Baxter’s own brother would not have recognized in that somewhat flashy, and unmistakable Gali- fornian, the woe-begone, tattered tramp of a few hours ago, Baxter succeeded in transferring his ill-gotten wealth into his new clothes, and having paid Levy, he took his departure from the store. Moses Levy looked after him for a moment and then locked up the shop, shaking his head. . Wrapping his heavy overcoat, which formed a part of his ont- fit, closely about him, and feeling delightfully comfortable in his new warm clothing, Baxter hurried over to Chatham square, where he found a hack. ‘To the Fifth Avenue Hotel,”’ he ordered, as he sprang into it. The driver whipped up the horses, and the hack dashed up town at a rapid gait. It was three o’clock in the morning “when the hotel was reached. ‘Tossing a five-dollar gold piece to the driver, Baxter entered the hotel, and, in a firm hand, registered the name of Colonel Edward M. Austen, San Francisco, Cal. Then, throw- ing a twenty-dollar gold-piece on the counter, he said to the clerk: . ‘<The best room in the house,” ai). te 7 r< * Vv. * . ‘ ‘ , ¢ * wad ee ut * = sé Or PU tn ee ee ee . y,* ve wi baie rae . comicbo wl ier ee ye ee ~5 * > * > se 3 ~~ a ae >» .* * s.com