Beadle's Dime Library No. 391 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

Se SES _ p> er . : . *. * cm nse ee ~ * = ‘e > ft « ‘ . - - ae ~ neal ” > - ; fn t SOS te and 3 A a ~ - —t “ | — ’ a2 hed . . - 1 e ‘ ‘ joke about der matter—it is notting to laugh at!” the Hebrew exclaimed, really distressed. ‘* It may be dot it ish all right to you, but it ish all wrong to me. I hafe about all my eggs in dot basket and I likes not to see them go to smash,” ‘‘Tranquilize yourself, gentle Abraham, we are not bu’sted yet.” And then Andrews produced his pocket-book, which was a large and exceedingly bulky one at present, and drew from it a goodly pile of bills, together with the checks he had received from the young men in payment of their gambling debts. “See how much there is there all together, bills and checks,” he said, tossing the precious tokens of wealth carelessly into the Jew’s lap. Goodchild’s eyes fairly bulged out from their sockets at this unexpected display, and he fell at once te work to count the money, ** How much?” asked the host, as the Jew fin- ished his task. ‘*Forty-seven thousand and fifty-one dollars to a cent,” was the answer. ‘*That check for ten thousand I do not wish to use, so we won’t count that, but deducting it we have thirty-seven thousand to the good,” CHAPTER XXVIII. THE SECRET CONFIDANT. ‘‘ WONDERFUL! wonderful!” muttered the Jew, as he stroked the pile with his fat fingers, as though he could hardly believe the evidence of his own eyes. ‘**T vill gife you mine word, as I am an honest man, I thought you were bu’sted and der jig vash up.” **Oh, no, not quite so bad as that,” Andrews replied, in his easy, careless way, just as if he had a million or two of dollars at his back. ‘I am a firm believer in the old Scotch proverb, ‘Never stretch out your band further than you can easily draw it back.’” ‘*Dot ish a good idea—dot ish a grand idea, but we cannot ower carry it oudt in dis world,” the Jew remarked, reflectively. “s Well, we must live up toit as nearly as pos- sible. I wason the lookout for just such a trick as this, and held part of my funds in reserve, so instead of being forced to the wall by this move- ment I stand a good chance of making forty or fifty thousand dollars.” ** Oh, yesh; there isn’t the least doubt about dot. You vill doit as easy as turn your hand over,” Goodchild asserted, ‘‘ Oh! you hafe taken a weight from mine mind. ‘I thought it would be all up with us; and, Mister Andrews, I had so much faith in your operations dot in dis matter I followed your lead and put all my leetle savings into der ting.” ‘*Ts there enough money there to cover you also?” **Oh, yesh,” ** Use it, then, and put on a bold front. Don’t let anybody suspect that we were afraid of get- ting squeezed.” - “Oh, mine gootness, no!” ‘¢ The checks are all indorsed, ready for use.” **T will be off then.” Goodchild stowed the money away ilo in his capacious wallet, and with a parting sal- ~-utation withdrew. The door closed with a spring lock, so that it was impossible for any one to open it from the outside without using a key, The master of the house evidently did not mean to be intruded upon without warning. Hardly had the door closed with its sharp aie snap behind the portly figure of the Jew, when -a section of one of the book-cases in the room swung out clear from the wall of which it seemed a part, disclosing a secret stairway, _ dark asa pocket, leading to the lower regions, In the passageway stood an elderly-looking -_ man with iron-gray hair and a short beard of the same hue. He was neatly attired in a dark business-suit, and looked like a sort of an upper servant, for he was evidently not a gentleman. person was known as Michael Jones, and he occupied the position of secretary and agent to Andrews. Mr. Jones had a little room in one of the wings on the second floor, although he was sel- dom at Blitnewood, for his duties in attending - to Mr. Andrews’s western business took him away most of the time. He was a very quiet man, this Mr, Jones, and was not regarded with much favor by the rest of the servants. | In fact, he had such a peculiar, ghost-like appearance when least expected, that the ser- vants got the idea he was a sort of a spy upon them, and so they were always on their good behavior when the secretary was around, ‘Hallo! are you there, Mike?’ Andrews ask- ed, a tree toward the secret door, his quick ears detecting the slight whir made by the bookcase as it moved, otherwise noiselessly, through the air. . ‘*¢ Yes, I’m here,” and the secretary advanced into the room and helped himself to the chair from which the Jew had risen, first taking the ‘precaution, however, to carefully shut the -gecret door; and when the bookcase was re- placed it would have been a shrewd guesser in- deed who could have suspected there was a secret door behind it. **Did you hear what passed between the gen- tle Jew and myself?” Andrews asked, ‘Yes, I was just going to enter the room when you and he came in, so I kept back and waited. * He’s a smart fellow, that Jew, but for all that he pretty near got his fingers pinched this time. If you hadn’t been lucky enough to have made that big raise, where would he have been?” bine twineth, and you can bet all your wealth on that too,” Andrews replied. ‘*He never would have stayed to face his creditors in the world, but instead he would have gathered all the funds he could get his hands upon and skipped to parts unknown. ‘* In the new cities of the far West there is al- ways room for a man like Goodchild to make a strike,” ‘* And they call that business,” grumbled the secretary. ‘‘Hang me! if it don’t seem as if the most of the business men are as big rascals in their way as the poor devils who are ‘doing time’ up the river.” **They are not like Ceesar’s wife, above sus- picion, and between you and me and the bed- ‘are Tam getting a little tired of this life that am leading; it’s mighty risky, and a man never knows exactly how he is standing. It’s fully. ‘*That’s so,” replied the secretary; ‘* but you are in so deep that I don’t exactly see how you are going to get out; but, I say, how on earth did you make that haul? Where did you strike so big a boodle? “I thought the whole thing was going to smash when the Jew spun his yarn about aw the big spiders in Wall street intended to skin all you little ones. ‘‘T knew you had about reached low-tide mark, for it was only yesterday when I spoke to you about some little bills that ought to be settled, you said you had less than a hundred dollars in your pocket,” ‘“Tt was the truth too,” Andrews observed. ‘* But I managed to make a raise of a couple of thousand dollars in tovn.” ‘Out of this old Grimgriskin?”’ ‘* He’s the man,” ‘*You must have played ba carcs pretty well, for if ’'m any judge of human nature the old fellow is about as sharp a skinflint as a man would run across in a long day’s journey.” ‘You are right there, but I have been study- ing him for some time, and, to use the slang, I think I have got him down fine. ‘** Fle is one of the suspicious men who would have instantly taken the alarm if I had pro posed to him to go into anything requiring him to put up any funds. **T played him as skillfully as an angler does a big fish. ““T never even hinted that I knew of am good speculations, but at the same time caused the fact to become known to him that I had managed to do pretty well for some parties who had sufficient confidence to trust me with their money, and so, at last, the old man, after pondering some time over the matter, came to the conclusion that he would try a ‘ flyer.’ ‘‘When he mentioned the matter to me, I mow of anything good just now, the market was dull—there was too much money seeking investment, and all the usual jargon of the street. ‘* And at Jast—any one who knows the man would hardly believe it—he brought me two thousand dollars and insisted upon my using it as [ thought best. ‘‘He had confidence that I could make a *turn’ with it to his advantage, and, Mike, al- though I was as hungry for that money as a starving man is for food, for I knew I had got in too deep, and that a little depression of rices would clean me out, yet I really made him press me before I would consent to take “Tt came in just in the nick of time; but where did you get the rest?” Mr. Jones asked. ‘*T made the ‘turn’ last night, or, to speak more correctly, last night and this morning combined, for we commenced the wrestle about ten last night and wound up at daybreak.” ‘* Aha, I begin to comprehend: you made your guests pay for their entertainment,” observed the secretary, with a chuckle. ‘‘ Exactly, that was the little game I played, and I think you'll admit that I played it forall it was worth,” Andrews remarked, complacently. “The two dudes and young Grimgriskin presume were the victims?” ‘* Yes, and the joke of the thing is that my bold Alcibiades took me for a greenhorn.” ‘* You don’t say so?” ‘Fact! as sure as you are sitting there, he played me for a sucker, My idea, of course, when I invited the duaes here was to ease them of a little of their surplus wealth, if the trick could possibly be worked. I knew they were in ra Kate Scott, the Decoy Detective. them interested im a ‘* Among the missing, gone where the wood- | | i ee layed offish for a while; said I really didn’t | ‘ & var d , - 4 4 the habit of playing at their clubs, although not for any great sums, a thousand or two at a sitting being the outside, and I calculated that if I managed the affair shrewdly I could get uiet game, and before it oe I could make them pay dearly for their un. **On young Grimgriskim I did not count be- cause, as a general rule, the young donkey never has any money and his I, O. U.’s are not worth the paper on which they are written. ‘* But he came prepared for slaughter.” ‘Oh, he did?’ and the secretary rubbed his hands gleefully together and chuckled as he thought how woefully the son of oildom had been disappointed in his calculation. ‘* Yes, came with money in one pocket and a pack of marked cards in another.” ‘* Well, well, that was cutting it rather fat!” ‘Oh, yes, but I tumbled to the trick im- mediately. The marked cards were the old style all played-out, the dealer knew his cus- tomer was a greenhorn and so he stuck him with unsalable tools.” CHAPTER XXTIX. A DEEP PLOT. ‘‘ Ho, ho, ho!” laughed the secretdry, * well, now, that is what I cail a joke.” ‘* Yes, and a mighty expensive one it was for him too before he got through,” the other ob- served. ‘*I saw what he was up fo right at the like walking over a slumbering voleano which | beginning. He had provided himself with the may burst forth at any moment and hurl de- | marked cards and had deliberately set out to struction around,” Andrews remarked, thought- | fleece me. ‘‘ Of course he took me for a greenhorn, and never for an instant dreamed I was an expert in handling the pasteboards. ‘* He felt so sure he could fleece me that he tried to banter me intoa game by offering to bet me that I dared not play with him.” ‘*Oh, he was just hot for it, wasn’t he?” ‘‘ He thought he had a sure thing, you know; with the marked cards he imagined he would have everything his own way.” ‘““Well, how was it that you flaxed him?” asked the other, deeply interested in the re- cital. ‘Tn the easiest manner possible. In the first place he had been drinking freely so his head wasn’t in a good condition; then, as I told you, the marked cards were the old style, difficult and complex, end sucha man as this lout would require about six months’ constant practice to be able to use them to advantage. ‘**Now my whole idea in getting the party down to the boat-house was to inveigle them into a game, and though I did not expect to get any money out of Alcbiades, yet I had concocted a little scheme by means of which I could make his I. O, U.’s valuable. ‘‘ So, when he proposed to play, it exactly an- swered my purpose, as I was prepared for just such a thing. ‘‘T had a marked pack of cards in my pocket too, but the modern article; star-backs, just the same in appearance as his pack, and the pri- ' vate marks upon them much the same also, but ' much simpler and with just changes enough to bother a man who was not completely acquaint- ed with the secret characters,” ‘*T see, I see!” chuckled the secretary. ‘** It was the easiest thing in the world for me to substitute one pack for the other, and the idiot never had the shightest suspicion, and as I Knew I must make hay while the sun shone as it was not likely I would ever get a chance at the two dudes again, I went in for a big stake. “T caught one man for ten thousand and the other for seventeen.” The secretary gave utterance toa prolonged whist'e. ‘‘ That was a master-stroke!” he exclaimed, in admirat'on. ‘*‘ And not only that, but Alcibiades, in order to make a big strike out of me, had raised eight thousand pee, some odd dollars and I scooped that in also,” remarked Andrews, with a quiet sipile. ‘tT give eer my word that this is the biggest deal that IT ever heayd of!” the other exclaimed. ‘Yes, but I haven’s got through yet; these spoils that I have told you of are all cash, and, in addition, I have young Grimgriskin’s ac- knowledgments for as many thousand more and a check for ten thousand drawn by the old man in his favor.” “ Well, you did skin him completely!” ‘+ Yes, the contemptible scoundrel! and it real- ly did me good, for now I have the mean rascal completely under my thumb.” “But I don’t exactly understand why you should care to have him there,” the secretary observed, ‘* Because unless I have him completely in m power, he might be apt to make me trouble,” Andrews replied. ‘“ T have laid out a certain game to play, and if I am successful, there’s an end to in the future. ‘‘1’m in for a big stake, and I mean to win it if I can.” | ‘* What’s the game now!” “This girl, Sidonia Grimgriskin, is an heir- ess in her own right toa couple of million dol- lars, She is just the kind of girl to suit me, and Gomicbooks 2