Three People Part 30

"Well," he said aloud, "I will make the attempt, although I am afraid it will be a failure; but we will try it. I will see Mr. Hastings at the earliest possible moment, and will do what I can; but, in the meantime, are you doing _all_ you can for your boy? Do you take him to G.o.d in prayer every day?"

The mother's eyes drooped, a little flush crept into the faded cheek, a little silence fell between them, until at last she said with low and faltering voice:

"That's a thing I never learned to do. I don't know how to do it for myself."

"Then you must remember that there is one all-important thing which you have left undone. My mother's prayer saved me from a drunkard's life. I know of no more powerful aid than that."

Very grave and sorrowful looked the poor mother; evidently she knew nothing about the compa.s.sionate Savior, who was ready and willing to help her bear her burden. Well for her that the young man in whom she trusted leaned on an arm stronger than his own. The mother had one more request to make of him.

"Could you _possibly_ go to see my Tommy?" she asked, with glistening eyes. "If you only could know him, and kind of coax him, he would take a notion to you like enough, and then he would go through fire and water to please you; he's always so when he takes notions, Tommy is."

Theodore promised again, and finally walked with the old lady down the long bewildering store to the very door, and bowed her out, she meantime looking very happy and hopeful.

Being familiar of old with the habits of the Euclid House, Theodore chose next day the hour when he judged that Tommy would be most at leisure, and sought him out. The landlord was a trifle grayer, decidedly more portly, but was in other respects the same smooth-tongued, affable host that he was when Tode Mall ran hither and thither to do his bidding. Theodore attempted nothing with him further than to beg a few minutes' chat with Tommy. He was directed to the identical little room with its patch of red and yellow carpet, upon which he found Tommy seated, mending a hole in his jacket pocket.

"So you're a tailor, are you?" asked Theodore, cheerily, seating himself familiarly on one corner of the little bed, and having a queer feeling come over him that the room belonged to him, and that Tommy was quite out of place sitting on his piece of carpet.

The young tailor looked up and laughed good-humoredly.

"Queer tailor I'd make!" he said, gaily. "Mother, she does them jobs for me generally, but this is a special occasion. I've lost ten cents and a jack-knife to-day, and I reckoned it was time for me to go to work."

"I used to live here," said Theodore, confidentially. "This was my room.

I used to have the table in that corner though, and I've always intended to come back here and have a look at the old room, but I never have until this afternoon."

Tommy suspended his work, and took a good long look at his visitor before he asked his next question.

"Be you the chap who made the row about the bottles?"

"The very chap, I suspect," answered Theodore, laughing.

Tommy sewed away energetically before he exploded his next remark.

"I wish you had _rowed_ them out of this house, I vum I do. Mother, she don't give me no peace of my life with talkings and cryings, and one thing and another, and a fellow don't know what to do."

The subject was fairly launched at last quite naturally, and what was better still, by Tommy himself; and then ensued a long and earnest conversation--and in proof that the visit had been productive of one effect that the mother had hoped for and prophesied, Tommy stood up and fixed earnest, admiring eyes on his visitor as he was about to leave, and said eagerly:

"There isn't much a fellow couldn't do to please you if he should set out."

"And how much to please the dear mother, whose only son he is?" answered Theodore, quickly.

Tommy's eyes drooped, and his cheeks grew very red.

"I do mean to," he said at last. "I mean to all over, every day; but the fellows giggle and--and--well I don't know, it all gets wrong before I think."

On the whole Theodore understood his subject very well--a good-natured, well-meaning, easily-tempted boy, not safe in a house where liquor was sold or used, _certainly_ not safe where it was freely offered and its refusal laughed at. He even hesitated about going to Mr. Hastings', so sure was he that even with the most favorable results from the call, Tommy would be unsafe in the Euclid House; but then there were other boys who might be reached in this way, and there was his promise to the old lady, and there was besides his eager desire to see what Mr.

Hastings would do or say. On the whole he decided to go.

"I _do_ manage to have the most extraordinary errands to this house," he soliloquized, while standing on the steps of Hastings' Hall awaiting the answer to his ring. "I wonder how circ.u.mstances will develop this evening?"

He had not long to wait; he had taken the precaution to write on his card under his name, "Special and important business," and Mr. Hastings stared at it and frowned, and finally ordered his caller to be admitted to his library. It was in all respects a singular interview. Mr.

Hastings was at first stiffly, and afterward ironically polite; listened with a sort of sneering courtesy to all that the young man had to say concerning Tommy and his companions, and when Theodore paused for a reply delivered himself of the following smooth sentences:

"This is really the most extraordinary of your many extraordinary ideas, Mr. Mall--I beg your pardon (referring to the card which he held in his hand), Mallery, I believe your name is _now_. I did not suppose I was expected to turn spy, and call to account every drop of wine that chances to be used in my buildings; it would be such utterly new business to me that I feel certain of a failure, and _we business_ men, Mr. Mall, do not like to fail in our undertakings. You really will have to excuse me from taking part in such a peculiar proceeding. If we have such a poor weak-minded boy in our employ as you describe, I feel very sorry for him, and would recommend his mother to take him home and keep him in her kitchen."

Theodore arose immediately, and the only discourteous word that he permitted himself to utter to Dora's father was to say with marked emphasis:

"Thank you, Mr. Hastings, I will suggest your advice to Mrs. Jenkins; and as she is a feeble old lady, I presume if her son becomes a drunkard and breaks her heart you will see that his sisters are comfortably provided for in the Orphans' Home. Good-evening, sir."

"Don Quixote!" Mr. Stephens called him, laughing immensely as his clerk related the story of his attempt and failure.

"I only gave him a chance to carry out some of his benevolent ideas, and save a capable waiter at the same time," answered Theodore, dryly. "But he is evidently too much engrossed with his Orphans' Home to be alive to his own interests."

"So you contemplate a speedy removal of Tommy from the Euclid House, do you?" said Mr. Stephens, reflectively.

"Yes, sir. Just as soon as I can secure him a position elsewhere."

"Can McPherson take him?"

"Hardly. He has a case now not unlike Tommy's in which he is deeply interested, and which occupies all his leisure time."

"Can you make him useful here?" said Mr. Stephens, thoughtfully, balancing his pen on his finger.

"Useful? No, sir, I fear not--at least not just at present."

"Can you keep him busy then?"

"Yes, sir, certainly."

"Then send for him," said Mr. Stephens, briefly, resuming his writing.

Theodore turned suddenly and bestowed a delightful look on his employer as he said eagerly:

"If there were only a few more people actuated by your principles we should need fewer Orphans' Homes."

"Confound that fellow and his impudence!" said the irate Mr. Hastings, as he finished detailing an account of Tommy's exit from the Euclid House under the supervision and influence of Mr. Mallery.

Pliny glanced up from his dish of soup, and opened his eyes wide in pretended surprise.

"One would suppose, sir, that you were not particularly grateful to the fellow for his rescue of your daughter from an untimely grave," he said, demurely.

"Untimely fiddlestick!" was Mr. Hastings' still more irritable reply.

"He thinks he is a hero, and presumes upon it to intrude himself in a most insufferable manner. I have no doubt Jonas would have got along without any of his interference."

Dora's face flushed and then paled, but the only remark she made was:

"Papa, you ought to have been there to see."

[Ill.u.s.tration]