CHAPTER XII
IN WHICH BRANDON VENTURES INTO RATHER DISREPUTABLE SOCIETY
“MY dear boy, sit down!” exclaimed Mr. Pepper, motioning Brandon to a chair. “Sit down and let me look at you.”
He himself took a chair at a desk by the window and studied the boy intently for several moments. Meanwhile Brandon was making a mental examination of the shipping merchant as well.
Adoniram Pepper was a little, rotund man with a good deal of color in his face and very little hair on his head. His mouth was always smiling, but at times, as Brandon had already seen, the gray eves could be very stern indeed behind the gold rimmed glasses, which latter had such hard work remaining upon Mr. Pepper’s squat nose.
“Yes, sir, you are the perfect picture of your father,” declared the shipping merchant at last. “I thought when I read of his death that we should never see his like again; but you have the promise of all his outward characteristics, at least. I hope you’ve his inner ones, too.”
“I hope so,” replied Brandon, pleased indeed at such praise of his father.
“He was a good man,” continued Mr. Pepper ruminatively. “By the way, what’s your name?”
“Brandon, sir.”
“Oh yes, I remember now. Your father talked to me of you. He wanted you to follow the sea, too, and I suppose that is what you’ve come down here to New York for, eh?”
“Yes, I hope to go to sea,” responded Brandon slowly.
Had he not remembered his experience with Caleb Wetherbee, without doubt Brandon would have opened his heart to the eccentric merchant and told him all; but bearing in mind the (to him) evident treachery of the mate of the Silver Swan, he was not ready to take into his confidence every friend of his father who happened to turn up.
“I thought so, I thought so!” exclaimed Mr. Pepper, rubbing his fat hands softly together. “The sea, by all means, my boy. That’s where I’ve obtained my living—and something beside—for many years, though in a little different way from your father. Captain Tarr commanded one of my vessels before he purchased the Silver Swan.”
“Yes, so he has told me,” responded Brandon.
“It was a sad thing—his loss at sea,” said Mr. Pepper.
He still smiled, but there was moisture on his eye glasses, and he removed and wiped them gently on a silk handkerchief.
“And he left you hardly a penny’s worth?” he continued interrogatively.
“I have only about fifty dollars,” Brandon replied briefly.
“Only fifty dollars,” repeated the shipping merchant softly. “Not much—more than I had, though, when I went out to seek my fortune; but I had friends—powerful friends—and so have you, Brandon.”
“Not many of them, I fancy,” Don returned, smiling.
“Not many, perhaps: but some,” the other declared with confidence, “and one of them is Adoniram Pepper.”
“Thank you, Mr. Pepper,” said Don. “I hope I shall be worthy of your kindness.”
“No doubt of that—no doubt of that,” rejoined the merchant, beaming upon him benignantly. “But to talk isn’t enough for Adoniram Pepper; I want to do something for you, my boy.”
“I—I don’t know just what you can do for me, sir,” said Brandon doubtfully.
“Don’t know? Why, you want to go to sea, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir; I think I do.”
“Then I can help you,” declared the merchant. “I’ve several vessels—three are in port at the present time—and it will be strange indeed if I can’t find a berth on one of them for you.”
“But I’m no sailor yet; I’ve got to learn,” objected Don.
“So I suppose; but I’ll risk your learning fast enough. Now, where would you like to go, and what position shall I give you?” and Mr. Pepper settled himself deeper into his chair, and looked as though he was prepared to offer Don any position he craved, from cook’s assistant to captain.
Brandon felt just a little bewildered by all this, and probably showed his bewilderment on his face.
“I’ll tell you what I have now,” went on Mr. Pepper. “There’s the brig Calypso, loading for Port Said—she sails tomorrow; and the clipper ship Frances Pepper (my sister’s name, you know) unloading from Rio, and bound back there and to Argentine ports in a fortnight; and then there’s the whaleback, Number Three.”
“The whaleback?” queried Brandon in perplexity.
“Yes, sir, whaleback; a whaleback steamer, you know. Didn’t you ever see one?”
Brandon shook his head.
“Well, you’ll have a chance to,” declared Mr. Pepper. “These whalebacks are something new. Lots o’ folks don’t believe in ’em; but I do. I bought the third one the company ever built, and it lies at one of my wharves now, being fitted up.”
“But where will that go?” Brandon inquired with interest.
Mr. Pepper rubbed his bald pate reflectively.
“Well,” he said, “that I don’t know yet. I haven’t decided. I’ve got a scheme, but whether ’twill work or not, I can’t say. I must find a man to command her first. I don’t suppose you’d feel like doing that, would you?” and the ship owner laughed jollily.
“I’m afraid not; perhaps, though, there’d be some other place on her I could fill with satisfaction to you.”
“Perhaps so. If I put her in the passenger trade, how would you like to be purser—assistant purser, of course, till you learn the duties?”
“I think I should like it,” replied Brandon, with some hesitation, however; “provided, of course, that I could take it at all.”
“Eh? Not take it? Why not?” demanded Mr. Pepper.
“Well, first I want to see my father’s old mate—one of the men saved from the raft, you know—about—well, about a matter concerning the wreck. Perhaps, then, if you can give me a berth, I’ll be able to accept it.”
“Going over to the hospital to see him, eh? I know Caleb Wetherbee.”
“No, he’s out of the hospital now. He gave me his address—New England Hotel, on this very street—and hunting for the place is what brought me here.”
“Bless my soul!” cried the ship owner; “Caleb out of hospital? Why, I didn’t expect he’d be ’round for some time yet. The papers said he was pretty nearly done for when he got to New York. It went harder with him than it did with the other sailor—a good deal harder.”
Brandon looked at him curiously. If Caleb Wetherbee was a particular friend of Mr. Pepper, the captain’s son began to feel some doubt as to the latter’s sincerity.
“Perhaps you can tell me where the New England Hotel is?” he asked.
“Yes, it’s right along here on this side of the street; several blocks away, perhaps. But,” he added, “you don’t tell me that Caleb is there? Why, he must be ’way down on his luck. I must see about this.”
Mr. Pepper wrinkled his brow nervously and Brandon rose.
“Where are you going?”
“Up to see this man—this mate of the Silver Swan.”
“Oh yes. Well, you tell him I’m coming up to see him myself, today. It’s a mystery to me why he should go to that place. I don’t understand it. How was he looking when you saw him—for I take it you have seen him?”
“How do you mean—sick or well?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, he appeared in pretty fair health, I should say,” replied Brandon, beginning to think that there was something queer about it all.
“Well, I’ll see him myself,” declared the merchant, rising and giving the boy his hand. “I tell you what we’ll do, Brandon. If you don’t get back here by noon, I’ll step up and get you, and we’ll go to lunch together; then afterward we’ll take a look at the whaleback, if you like.”
Brandon thanked him and opened the door into the outer office, almost falling over Mr. Alfred Weeks, who had his head suspiciously near the keyhole.
“Lo—looking for my ruler that I dropped,” declared the red haired clerk, as his employer’s eyes rested sternly upon him.
But as he passed out, Brandon noticed that the ruler was on the high desk holding open the leaves of a much tattered paper novel.
“Funny sort of fellow for a respectable ship owner to employ,” Brandon decided, as he made his way along the crowded thoroughfare. “In fact, I guess I’ll withhold my opinion of all three of these people till I know ’em better—Wetherbee, Pepper, and his clerk.”
By closely scanning the signs on the buildings as he passed, the captain’s son finally discovered the place he sought. He came within an ace of not doing so, however, for the words “New England Hotel” were simply painted on a small strip of tin on one side of the doorway, the rest of the sign space being devoted to the words: John Brady, Wines, Liquors, and Cigars.
Brandon hesitated a moment before entering the place. It was plainly a saloon of the worst type, the “hotel” part evidently being but a “blind” by means of which the bar could be kept open all night.
Two or three disreputable men—sailors or longshoremen by appearance—were hanging about the door, but Brandon Tarr had a good deal of confidence in his ability to take care of himself, and finally ascended the steps.
A sickening odor of stale tobacco smoke and bad liquor assailed his nostrils as he stepped within the room, and he was almost tempted to back out and give up his intention of seeing Wetherbee. But the man behind the bar—a villainous looking fellow with a closely cropped head and red face—had seen him and came briskly forward.
“Well, young felley, what kin I do fur ye?” he asked, in what was intended as a pleasant tone.
Deciding that he was in for it, the captain’s son walked forward to the bar and replied:
“Nothing to drink, thank you. I’m looking for a man who’s stopping here—Caleb Wetherbee.”
The bartender eyed him curiously and repeated:
“Caleb Wetherbee, eh? Well, I’ll see ’f he’s here.”
He stepped back to a door leading into an inner room and, opening it a crack, called to somebody inside. There was a whispered conversation between the men, and the bull necked individual came back to the bar.
“All right, m’ duck; he’s in dere,” he said, with a grin, and a motion of his thumb toward the inner door. “Yer don’t have ter send in no kyard.”
Taking this as a permission to enter, Brandon walked across the long saloon, littered with tables and chairs, and its door covered with sawdust, and opened the door.
The apartment beyond was as badly furnished as the outer room, there being only a square deal table and several wooden bottomed chairs. In one of these chairs before the table, with his head bowed upon his arms, was the sailor whom Brandon had seen two days before in the woods on his uncle’s farm back in Chopmist, the only occupant of the place.