THE TALE OF A MISER

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XI, Issue 44, 4 November 1893, Page 376

THE TALE OF A MISER

DAVID SCOTT.

HERE could be no doubt about it—David Scott was a miser. The damning evidence •' °f c * rcn,ns l ancBB was strong, and David xXNIWII/jZj Scott could not stand up under its weight. '•ISwIK'bJ-' is well that he made no effort to change Public opinion, for public opinion was satislied on this point. For ten years David Scott had been head bookkeeper in the straw goods importing house of Starbuck, Jennings and Starbuck, he was paid a handsome salary for his work But notwithstanding his good pay the head bookkeeper grew seedier and seedier with years. The younger Starbuck was willing to take oath that Scott had worn thesame coat and bat ever since he bad been in the firm, which was all of seven years, but youth is inclined to exaggeration and the utterances of a junior partner may sometimes be taken with a grain of salt. Be this statement true or false, it is certain that no one could remember when David Scott had worn a new suit of clothes, and the long frock coat of black and shiny broad cloth was the onlyjone that anyone could remember to have seen him in. Once for ten days he had worn a sack coat of mixed goods borrowed from Tom, the confidential porter of Starbuck, Jennings and Starbuck, while his own was being dyed and repaired, for Scott, with all his frugality, was an exceedingly neat man. No one recognised him when he came into the oflice with Tom’s short coat on until he had mounted his high stool and bent over his day book and ledger. Even David himself could not get used to the change at once, and for the first day or two he forgot that his long coat was at the dyer’s, and he would reach behind him to wipe his pen on the tails that were not there, inking his fingers instead, to his great annoyance, for he could feel the silent mirth of the young fellow who had charge of the petty cash and the girl who played upon the typewriter, and David disliked ridicule as much as most men. David Scott never took the * noon-spell ’ privilege, so dear to all employees. When the other men in the office went around the corner to the saloon, where free lunch was given with the beer, or to the bakery, where a cup of muddy coffee and two doughnuts could be had for five cents. David did not go with them. He said he would like the free lunch, but he didn’t want to pay for the beer, and as for the bakery the doughnuts were too dear for the amount of sustenance that went with them. The typewriter girl didn’t go out, either, but she brought a very nice lunch of sandwiches and cake pinned up in a red napkin, and this she ate slowly and with an abstracted air as she read a morning penny paper, which she afterwards gave to David. Sometimes she brought an extra sandwich, and this, too, she gave to the bookkeeper. He always took it, but no one ever saw him eat it, for he wrapped it carefully in a bit of brown paper and laid it away in the crown of his hat to carry home with him at night. What he did eat took no time from his work. He had an arrangement with the firm whereby he was paid extra for answering their French and Italian correspondence at the noon hour, for he was something of a linguist, and as he wrote he munched a bit of soda biscuit or a crust of dry bread. He tried to do this secretly, for be knew that the typewriter had her eyes upon him. Indeed, she did ask him once why he didn’t eat more, and he replied that he preferred light meals; that overeating was the curse of the country, and he did not propose to ruin his digestive organs by giving them too much to do. She was not a very observing young person, but she told the type-writer girl next door, as they went up town in the same street car, that David Scott was certainly a miser, and the other girl said that that was no news, for everyone knew it. She had with her own eyes seen him picking up scraps of meat in Washington Market, and she had heard the butcher tell a customer that be was a miser, but he felt sorry for him, and let him have the scraps whenever became around. One day the senior Starbuck called David Scott into his private oflice, which was divided by glass and black walnut partitions from the rest of the counting-room. It was a cold, bleak day—the winds of February were close upon the heels of March, which month everyone predicted would come in like a lion. The flames of a soft coal fire leapt up in the little grate and intensified the red that comes of good living which shone in the senior partner’s cheeks. It lent no colour to the thin, pale cheeks of David Scott, but it added an unwonted brightness to his deep sunk eyes. Mr Starbuck turned his back to the grate as David entered, with his coat tails pulled aside and his hands in his trousers’ pockets, where they came in contact on the one side with a bunch of keys and a lot of loose silver, and on the other with his well filled pocket-book. Mr Starbuck had enjoyed a comfortable lunch, and there was an amiable expansion about the set of his waistcoat that testified to this and to other good luncheons. The contrast between the two men was marked, but the one was too absorbed in what he was about to say to notice it, for he disliked coming into personal contact with his employes except in the way of business, and the other was too nervous at being sent for by the senior partner at that hour of the day to think of anything else. * I have sent for you, Scott,’ said Mr Starbuck, planting himself more securely on the hearth rug, * to speak to you on a personal matter.’ If possible David Scott’s face grew a shade paler as he removed his pen from behind his ear and twirled it nervously between his lingers. ‘ It is not a pleasant thing for me to have to say, but someone must say it, and, as the senior partner of the firm with which you are employed, it falls to my duty.’ Mr Starbuck, who had risen on his toes as he delivered these lines, settled gradually down upon his heels, as though he was satisfied with the way he had opened np the case, Scott only bowed his head slightly and twirled the pen more nervously than before. * The truth is, Scott, that your dress and your manner of living rellect no credit upon the firm of Starbuck, Jennings and Starbuck. I have heard it intimated that we paid our

head bookkeeper such a beggarly salary that he could not buy decent clothes and that he was half starved. The confidential clerk of Slote and Snyder who, as you know, are our most important rivals in the straw-goods business, followed you home one night, and he has told everyone that you lived in a miserable garret and cooked your own food over an oil stove. He says, furthermore, that we are so mean that we are working you to death, and that you are obliged to take your books home at night to keep up with your work. Now this I know to be false, for our books are locked in the safe every evening by Mr Jennings. So what does this mean, for he is willing to swear that you had a lot of day books and ledgers on your table, and that your fellow-lodgers said that you worked half the night?' * I did not suppose that it made any difference to you, sir, if I worked for other people out of hours,’ said Scott, in a low voice. * No, there would be no objection if you were not killing yourself. But what in the name of heaven do you want with more money ? You don’t spend a tenth of what yau earn here. You have not had a new suit of clothes within the memory of any one in the office, and I’ll be sworn, now, that you haven’t got an overcoat to your back, and the weather so cold that it actually freezes the marrow in one’s bones,’ and Mr Starback backed a few inches nearer the glowing coals. * I am very hot-blooded, sir,’ answered Scott, drawing his emaciated figure up as high as the stoop in his shoulders would allow, • and I really do not -need an overcoat. I should suffer with the heat if I wore any heavier clothing. You know, sir, I walk quickly and swing my arms, and I could not do that if I were burdened with an overcoat.’ Scott tried to smile and look strong and athletic as he lifted his arms, that had never wielded anything heavier than a pen, and let them fall listlessly back again to his sides. There was a pathos in his gesture that was almost apparent to Mr Starbuck. * That’s all nonsense, Scott, and I don’t believe a word of it. You must buy yourself some warm clothing, get decent lodgings and feed yourself properly. You must do it for the credit of the firm. Mr Jennings is very much annoyed by the stories he hears outside. I tell you frankly, Scott, that he has urged me to replace you by a man who would do the office more credit. Scott’s hand clutched the back of a heavy office chair so tightly that he almost lifted it from the floor. ‘Do I not do my work well, Mr Starbuck ? Should a faithful servant be discharged because he does not dress like a dandy, lodge like a sybarite and eat like a gourmand ?’ A pink flush rose to the cheeks of the bookkeeper and faded away as quickly as it came. * I don’t understand you, Scott,’ said Mr Starbuck, after regarding him closely for a moment; ‘you are a mystery to me,’ and there is no doubt but that the senior partner spoke the truth. ‘ I cannot believe that you are the son of your father. Ned Scott and I were great friends in the good old days. What times we used to have,’ and Mr Starbuck’s eyes twinkled and his colour deepened at the thought. ‘ You are not a bit like your father, Scott; he threw money around like a millionaire; there was nothing penurious about Ned Scott 1 He was a whole-souled, jolly dog.’ Mr Starbuck chuckled quietly to himself at the recollection, but the son of the * jolly dog ’ turned deathly pale and trembled like an aspen leaf. ‘ Your mother is living, isn’t she, Scott ?’ ‘ Yes, sir ; but not in New York. She is with her sister on the old farm in Vermont.’ ‘An old lady now, of course. When I remember her she was in her early prime. Such a fine looking couple you don’t often see, and such devotion. You would suppose that they were just married when they had been married for years. I believe your mother literally worshipped your father, Scott.’ The book-keeper moved his lips, but they refused to speak. Mr Starbuck did not notice it, but continued : ‘ Now about this business—l have said all this, Scott, for your own good, and I have said it to you myself because I wanted it done gently for your father’s sake, and for your own, too, for I have nothing to complain of about your work. Only Ido wish that you would brace up. What’s the use of hoarding your money ? I don’t recommend a man to be extravagant, but don’t be a miser. The son of Ned Scott a miser ! that seems impossible.’ Scott still clutched the chair nervously with his long fingers, but said nothing. ‘You may go now, Scott, and remember what I have said.’ ‘ Thank you very much, Mr Starbuck,’ said Scott in a low voice. ‘ I shall try to do better, sir, for you are very kind to me.’ David Scott had scarcely mounted his high stool again before Mr Jennings entered the oflice and hung his hat and coat upon their pegs. ‘ Well,’ said he, addressing Mr Starbuck and at the same time taking a brush from a pigeonhole in his desk and carefully brushing the thin hair from the side of his head over a bald place on the top, ‘ Well ! What did he have to say for himself ? I saw him going out of here just as I came in the front door.’ ‘ Not much,’ said Mr Starbuck. ‘ Not much ? Well, there wasn’t much to say. It’s a plain case against him. The truth is the man’s a miser. He loves gold and that’s all there is about it. The love of money is the root of all evil. There's no going back on that.’ Mr Jennings was as tall and spare as Mr Starbuck was short and round, and he took infinite pleasure in hanging his long legs over the arm of his chair when in the presence of Mr Starbuck, who could only manage to cross his short limbs after long exhausting effort. ‘ Did you talk to him like a Dutch uncle ?’ inquired Jennings, swinging his legs. ‘ Yes, I did ; but at the same time he had such a pitiful look on his face that I could not bear to be too hard on him.'

* You’re too soft-hearted. Starbuck. Seems to me I remember something about Scott’s father. Supposed to have been rich but left his family poor—something queer about bis death. You knew him ; what was it ?’ * His father, Ned Scott, was one of the best fellows in the world,’ said Mr Starbuck, retreating to bis chair, for the fire was getting too hot for comfort. •He was confidential clerk in the banking-house of Baker Bros, and Ross, signed all the cheques of the firm, and I am told was to have been taken into partnership the very week that he blew his brains out. There was no explanation of the act. People said at first that there was something crooked about his accounts, but when the firm was interviewed by a Herald reporter they declined to say anything.’ * That was the easiest way out of it,’ said Jennings, with rather an ironical smile on his thin lips. * Was Scott a fast man !’ ‘No. I don’t believe that he was really fast. He was fond of a toddy with his friends, but he was a devoted husband and father. His wife nearly died with grief, but she told my wife that the only thing that gave any brightness to her life after her husband’s death was her implicit confidence in his integrity.’ ‘ You can’t take a wife’s estimate of her husband. I’ll bet you ten to one that there was something rotten in Denmark.’ Mr Jennings was a patron of the drama, so that he occasionally sprinkled his conversation with a Shakesperean quotation. ‘ I don’t believe it,’ said Mr Starbuck. ‘ I do,’ said Mr Jennings, and each gentleman wheeled around to his desk and began the work of the afternoon. For the rest of the cold weather David Scott wore an extra waistcoat that he had found among some rubbish, and he showed it with no little pride to Mr Starbuck, who hadn’t the heart to say anything more on the subject of his clothes. Spring passed and the summer and autumn came, only to go again and make room for winter. In the meantime David Scott went on in his old ways, but with a hard, hacking cough that bad a dangerous sound. Just before the gay holidays it was noticed that he had made two or three efforts to be gay ; that he had actually smiled on occasion, and when the young type-writer gave him a sandwich he ate it then and there. As he went home one wild night he actually cracked a joke with the porter as he turned up his coat collar and started out to wrestle with the storm. ‘ The miser will have an easier time in this storm than the senior partner will,’ said the irreverent office boy as he watched Scott through the window. ‘ He’s so thin that he’ll cut right through the wind, but the boss’ll have all he can do to stand up agin her. 1 say, Mike,’ said he to the porter, ‘ I wonder if the miser’ll hang up his stocking on Chrismus?’ * I don’t believe he’s got none to hang up,’ said Mike, as be put the big padlock on the front door and turned the key. ‘ It’s a lonesum Chrismus he’ll have, poor man,’ and Mike thought of his own little home in an east-side tenement, where six small Irish-Americans were eagerly and noisily awaiting the arrival of Father Christmas. The next morning Scott was absent from his desk. Mr Starbuck, who had noticed his bad cough, said at once that the bookkeeper was ill, and he told the office boy to stop at his lodgings and find out how he was. He felt sorry forScott on his father’s account, and besides he was a valuable man in the office and could not easily be replaced. But it was a busy week, as the week before Christmas always is, and there did not seem to be any time when the office-boy could be spared, and it was not until the day before the great day that he found an opportunity to inquire into the illness of the absent bookeeper. David Scott’s lodgings were scarcely what the confidential clerk of Slote and Snyder had described them to be. The room was comfortably but not luxuriously furnished. On the bed lay David Scott. His cheeks were red enough now ; a belle at her first ball might have envied their colour and the brightness of his eyes. A doctor from Bellevue Hospital sat by the side of the bed and held his fingers on the sick man’s pulse. The clock of St. George’s, which was only a few blocks away, struck twelve. David Scott almost pushed the doctor off the bed in his effort to get up. ‘Do you hear that?' Twelve o’clock. Let me go. I must be in Wall-street at twelve o’clock to day,’ and his bare feet touched the cold boards. The doctor was a big, strong man, but he need not have been as big and strong as he was to lift David Scott back to his bed. *Do you know what you are doing, sir ? You are bringing disgrace upon the head of an innocent family ; you are dragging a proud name in the dust. Let me go. I tell you. At 12 o’clock to day I must be in the ofliceof Baker Bros, and Ross, or all will be lost.’ Again David tried to get out of bed and again the doctor put him gently back. ‘ My good friend,’ said the doctor in a firm, quiet voice, ‘ I have anticipated your wishes. I heard you say over and over again during your delirium that you must be in the' office of Baker Bros, and Ross at 12 o’clock to-day or all was lost. Now, as I do not wish ail to be lost, though I don’t know what “all” way be, I have done the best I could under the circumstances, and Mr Baker being an old friend of mine I have sent for him to come here. If I mistake not I hear bis footstep on the stair now.’ The doctor crossed the room and opened the door. It was indeed Mr Baker, and strangely out of place he looked in that abode of squalor. When David Scott saw him he raised up in bed and fixed his burning eyes upon the banker. ‘ I am ready to pay you, sir; every penny shall be yours. Sit down, please, for one moment. Now, doctor, if you will get pen, ink and paper from the drawer of that table I will tell you what to write.’ The doctor did as directed, and David Scott busied himself with bunting for something among the straw of his mattress. Finally he pulled out a parcel, and this he kissed passionately and hugged to his breast as he sat up in bed. * Now, doctor,’ said he in a sharp, unnatural voice, * write what I dictate. Are you ready?' * Yes,’ said the doctor, trying the pen on his broad thumb nail, ‘ I’m ready.’ ‘ Then write,’ and David Scott leaned forward, still clutching the parcel to his breast and still speaking in a sharp, unnatural voice. * This is to certify that I have received from David Scott the sum of £6,000 principal and interest, in full, in payment of the indebtedness of his father, Edward Scott, to the firm of Baker Bros, and Ross. Now, Mr Baker, will you sign that?’ said the sick man eagerly.

The banker stepped up to the rickety little table and signed the name of his firm to the document. ‘ Now doctor, your name as a witness,' please,’ said Scott, growing more excited and weaker every moment. The doctor did as requested. • Quick, give me the paper.’ The banker handed him a paper and he gave him the parcel that he held in return. * Count it, Mr Baker, and you lock the door, doctor, for fear some thief might get in and rob me after all these years of saving.’

While the banker counted out the bills the sick man cried and laughed alternately, as he kissed the paper that he held in his hand. •Ah, mother, mother, 1 have done all this for you. That you might never know. That my father’s name should always be honoured by you. You told me once, with a look in your eyes which I shall never forget, how you would have died if there had been anything dishonourable connected with your husband’s name. It would have all come out in the newspapers, and you and all the world would have known. But your son has paid the debt. The firm were kind—they agreed to wait, and now the agony is over. Oh, mother I mother ! it was all for you ! all for you ! It is a great Christmas present from a poor man, is it not ?’

• It’s all right, Mr Baker, all right—the bank messenger brought it to me yesterday. Ha ! ha ! ha ! I’m not going to be a miser any longer—l shall be a spendthrift now. What a Christmas dinner I’ll have !’ and the man threw himself back upon the bed exhausted. ‘ I did not suppose that you were going to live like this, to make such sacrifices as you have done to pay back this money. You have certainly acted in the most honourable manner, Mr Scott,’ said Mr Baker with polite formality. The sick man did not hear him say good day, he was too

far away for that. The doctor accompanied the banker to the door, saying, as he bowed him out, ‘ This is certainly the most extraordinaryscene that I have ever witnessed. This poor fellow has deprived himself of the necessaries of life—actually become a miser—that his mother might not know of her husband’s crime !'

The doctor had to wink his eyes violenty, but he said that it was coming from the dark hall into the light room that caused his eyes to smart. As he stood looking out of the window a moment, loosening his necktie, which pressed hard against a lump in his throat, he heard some one at the door, and, opening it, saw the pert face of the oftice boy from

Starbuck, Jennings, and Starbuck peering through the gloom. * The boss sent me to see what was the matter with the miser, and if he’s sick he wants to know if he kin do anythin’ fur him.’ The doctor crossed the room quietly. David Scott still lay with his face to the wall, the paper was elapsed in his hands and touched his lips. The doctor bent over him and placed his hand on his heart. He stood there for a moment and then, turning to the oflice boy, said : * Tell your master it is too late.’