CHAPTER XI
THE FIRM OF ADONIRAM PEPPER & CO.
LEAVING his bag and gun case at the hotel. Brandon Tarr started out by nine o’clock on the following morning, his first aim being to find and interview the sailor who had already visited Chopmist for the purpose of seeing him.
“Caleb Wetherbee, New England Hotel. Water Street,” was the address, and after considerable inquiry he found the street in question.
It was, however, the Battery end of it and no one seemed to know anything about the New England Hotel. Still, Don was not dismayed and pursued his way, keeping his eyes open and himself alert among the many new sights and sounds of the metropolis.
The locality grew worse as he pursued his way, but he was not to be frightened off by gangs of street gamins, or crowds of half drunken men. Still, in these days, Water Street isn’t as bad as it was once—at least, not by daylight.
As he wandered along he could see down the cross streets to the wharves and water beyond, where all sorts and conditions of seagoing craft were gathered from all parts of the world. He sniffed the sea breeze, too, which, to him, killed all the odor of the filth about him.
“That’s what I want to be—a sailor,” he muttered.
Just then something caught his eye and he stopped motionless on the sidewalk.
On the opposite side of the street (the river side) as though crowded off Front Street by its more pretentious neighbors, was the office of a shipping firm. It was in a low brick building, dingy and dirty as were the structures about it, and a much battered sign over the door read:
ADONIRAM PEPPER & CO.,
SHIPPING MERCHANTS.
The name was what attracted Brandon’s attention first. He had heard his father speak of it and of the man who was “Adoniram Pepper & Co.,” and from his description he had a desire to see this eccentric personage.
Perhaps, also, Mr. Pepper would know the locality of the New England Hotel, and therefore Brandon crossed the street and entered the dingy little front office.
On a high stool by a high desk just beside the window, sat a man with a wonderful development of leg, a terrific shock of the reddest hair imaginable, and a shrewd, lean face, lit up by sharp, foxy eyes. His face was smoothly shaven and the yellow skin was covered with innumerable wrinkles like cracks in the cheeks of a wax doll; but whether this individual was twenty-five, or fifty-five, Brandon was unable to guess.
The man (a clerk, presumably) looked up with a snarl at Brandon’s appearance.
“Well, what do you want?” he demanded.
“Is the firm in?” asked Don, almost laughing in the other’s face, for the red haired clerk had a huge daub of ink on the bridge of his nose and another on his shirt front.
“I’m the firm just now,” declared the man, glowering at him as though he was a South Sea Islander with cannibalistic tendencies.
“Oh, you are, eh?” returned Brandon. “Well, I want to see Mr. Pepper.”
“You do, eh?” The clerk eyed him with still greater disfavor. “You do, eh? Well you can’t see Mr. Pepper.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for one reason he isn’t here—he ain’t down yet—he’s gone away—he’s dead!”
He slammed down his pen and jumped off the high stool.
“Git out o’ here you little rapscallion!” he roared, evidently expecting Brandon to be frightened by his vehemence. “We don’t allow no loafing ’round this office. Git, I say, or——”
At that instant the street door behind the amused Brandon was opened, and with one glance at the newcomer the clerk’s jaws shut together like a trap, he turned about and bounded to his seat on the stool with great ability, and seizing his pen went to work on his books with monstrous energy.
Brandon turned about also, surprised at these proceedings, and found a short, pudgy looking little man standing in the doorway of the office, gazing at the clerk with a broad smile on his red face; but upon looking closer the boy discovered that, although the mouth was smiling, the gentleman’s eyes were very stern indeed behind the gold rimmed eye glasses.
“What is the meaning of this unseemly conduct, Weeks?” he asked in a tone of displeasure.
“I—I was just showin’ this—this young friend of mine how—how a feller up to the Bow’ry acted t’other night,” murmured the clerk, a sort of ghastly red color mounting into his withered face beneath the parchment-like skin.
“The Bowery?” repeated the gentleman, severely, and Brandon decided that this was no other than Mr. Adoniram Pepper himself.
“Yes, sir; Bowery Theater, you know,” responded the clerk glibly, with an imploring side glance at Brandon. “’Twas in the play, ‘The Buccaneer’s Bride,’ you know.”
“No, I don’t know,” replied Mr. Pepper, in disgust. “So this is your friend, is it?” and he turned his gaze upon Brandon genially.
“Our friendship is of rather short duration,” said Don, smiling.
“So I presume,” returned Mr. Pepper. “Did you wish to see me?”
“Just a moment, sir.”
“I’ll give you two moments if you like.” Then he turned again to the clerk and shook one fat finger at him. “One of these days I’ll discharge you, Weeks,” he said sternly.
“I expect so,” groaned the clerk. “And then what’ll I do?”
Mr. Pepper looked at him a moment silently.
“Then you’ll go and lie somewhere else, I suppose. You will lie, Alfred Weeks, and I suppose I might as well keep you here and let you lie to me, as to turn you loose upon your fellow men. Well, well! Now, young man;” he turned with a sigh from the clerk and again looked at Brandon.
“I suppose you are Mr. Pepper?” began Brandon.
“I—sup—pose—I—am,” replied the gentleman, with great care, scrutinizing the face of the captain’s son with marked interest.
“Let’s see, what is your name?” he said: “or, no, you needn’t tell me. I know it already. Your name is Tarr, and you are Captain Horace Tarr’s son!”
“Yes, sir, I am,” Brandon replied in surprise.
“I knew it, I knew it!” declared Mr. Pepper, shaking both the boy’s hands so violently that the eye glasses, which had a hard enough time generally in staying on the little man’s nose, tumbled off, and were only caught and saved from destruction by great agility on Mr. Pepper’s part.
“My dear boy! I’d have known you if I’d met you in Timbuctoo!” he declared. “Come into my office and tell me all about yourself. I’ve been thinking about you ever since—er—your poor father’s death. I’ve got something to tell you, too.”
He led Brandon toward the inner door, marked “Private,” and opening it, disclosed a comfortably furnished room with a fire in the grate, and a general air of cheerfulness about it.
“Come right in,” he repeated, and then shut the door behind his visitor.
But no sooner was the door closed than the acrobatic clerk was off his stool, and had his ear fitted to the keyhole with a celerity which denoted much practice in the art of eavesdropping.