Jack descended Peter's stairs one step at a time, Each seemed to plunge him the deeper into some pit of despair. Before he reached the bottom he began to realize the futility of his efforts. He began to realize, too, that both he and Ruth had been swept off their feet by their emotions. MacFarlane, the elder Breen, and now Peter, had all either openly condemned his course or had given it scant encouragement. There was nothing to go new but go home and tell Ruth. Then, after the funeral was over, he would have another talk with MacFarlane.
He had reached the cool air of the street, and stood hesitating whether to cross the Square on his way to the ferry, or to turn down the avenue, when the door of Isaac Cohen's shop opened, and the little tailor put out his head.
“I have been waiting for you.” he said in a measured voice. “Come inside.”
Jack was about to tell him that he must catch a train, when something in the tailor's manner and the earnestness with which he spoke, made the young fellow alter his mind and follow him.
The little man led the way through the now darkened and empty shop, lighted by one gas jet—past the long cutting counter flanked by shelves bearing rolls of cloth and paper patterns, around the octagon stove where the irons were still warm, and through the small door which led into his private room. There he turned up a reading lamp, its light softened by a green shade, and motioning Jack to a seat, said abruptly, but politely—more as a request than a demand:
“I have a question to ask you, and you will please tell me the truth. How much money do you want, and what do you want it for?”
Jack bit his lip. He wanted money, and he wanted it badly, but the tailor had no right to pry into his private affairs—certainly not in this way.
“Well, that was something I was talking to Uncle Peter about,” he rejoined stiffly. “I suppose you must have overheard.”
“Yes, I did. Go on—how much money do you want, and what do you want it for?”
“But, Mr. Cohen, I don't think I ought to bother you with my troubles. They wouldn't interest you.”
“Now, my dear young man, you will please not misunderstand me. You are very intelligent, and you are very honest, and you always say what is in your heart; I have heard you do it many times. Now say it to me.”
There was no mistaking the tailor's earnestness. It evidently was not mere curiosity which prompted him. It was something else. Jack wondered vaguely if the Jew wanted to turn money-lender at a big percentage.
“Why do you want to know?” he asked; more to gain time to fathom his purpose than with any intention of giving him the facts.
Isaac went to his desk, opened with great deliberation an ebony box, took out two cigars, offered one to Jack, leaned over the lamp until his own was alight, and took the chair opposite Jack's. All this time Jack sat watching him as a child does a necromancer, wondering what he meant to do next.
“Why do I want to know, Mr. Breen? Well, I will tell you. I have loved Mr. Grayson for a great many years. When he goes out in the morning he always looks through the glass window and waves his hand. If I am not in sight, he opens the door and calls inside, 'Ah, good-morning, Isaac.' At night, when he comes home, he waves his hand again. I know every line in his face, and it is always a happy face. Once or twice a week he comes in here, and we talk. That is his chair—the one you are sitting in. Once or twice a week I go up and sit in his chair and talk. In all the years I have known him I have only seen him troubled once or twice. Then I asked him the reason, and he told me. To-day I heard you speak about some money you wanted, and then I saw that something had gone wrong. After I left he came downstairs and passed my window and did not look in. I watched him go up the street, he walked very slow, and his head was down on his chest. I did not like it. A little while ago he came back; I went out to meet him. I said, 'Mr. Grayson, what troubles you?' And he said—'Nothing, Isaac, thank you,' and went upstairs. That is the first time in all the years I know him that he answered me like that. So now I ask you once more—how much money do you want, and what do you want it for? When I know this, then I will know what troubles Mr. Grayson. There is always a woman or a sum of money at the bottom of every complication. Mr. Grayson never worries over either. I do not believe you do, but I have had many surprises in my life.”
Jack had heard him through without interruption. Most of it—especially Cohen's affection for Peter—he had known before. It was the last statement that roused him.
“Well, if you must know, Mr. Cohen—it is not for myself, but for a friend.”
The Jew smiled. He saw that the young man had told the truth. Peter's confidence in the boy, then, need not be shaken.
“And how much money do you need for your friend?” His eyes were still reading Jack.
“Well, a very large sum.” Jack did not like the cross-examination, but somehow he could not resent it.
“But, my dear young man, will you not tell me? If you buy a coat, do you not want to know the price? If you pay for an indiscretion, is not the sum named in the settlement?”
“Ten thousand dollars.”
There was no change in the Jew's face. The smile did not alter.
“And this is the money that Mr. Grayson tried to borrow for you, and failed? Is it not so?”
Jack nodded.
“And you have tried everywhere to get it yourself? All the afternoon you have been at it?” Still the same queer smile—one of confirmation, as if he had known it all the time.
Again Jack nodded. Isaac was either a mind reader or he must have been listening at the keyhole when he poured out his heart to Peter.
“Yes, that is what I thought when I saw you come in a little while ago, dragging your feet as if they were lead, and your eyes on the ground. The step and the eye, Mr. Breen, if you did but know it, make a very good commercial agency. When the eye is bright and the walk is quick, your customer has the money to pay either in his pocket or in his bank; when the step is dull and sluggish, you take a risk; when the eye looks about with an anxious glance and the step is stealthy, and then when you take the measure for the coat, both go out dancing, you may never get a penny. But that is only to tell you how I know,” the tailor chuckled softly. “And now one thing more”—he was serious now—“when must you have this ten thousand dollars?”
“Before Monday night.”
“In cash?”
“In cash or something I can get cash on.”
The tailor rose from his seat with a satisfied air—he had evidently reached the point he had been striving for—laid the stump of his cigar on the edge of the mantel, crossed the room, fumbled in the side pocket of a coat which hung on a nail in an open closet; drew out a small key; sauntered leisurely to his desk, all the while crooning a tune to himself—Jack following his every movement, wondering what it all meant, and half regretting that he had not kept on to the ferry instead of wasting his time. Here he unlocked a drawer, took out a still smaller key—a flat one this time—removed some books and a small Barye bronze tiger from what appeared to be a high square table, rolled back the cloth, bringing into view an old-fashioned safe, applied the key and swung back a heavy steel door. Here, still crooning his song in a low key, dropping it and picking it up again as he moved—quite as does the grave-digger in “Hamlet”—he drew forth a long, flat bundle and handed it to Jack.
“Take them, Mr. Breen, and put them in your inside pocket. There are ten United States Government bonds. If these Breen people will not lend you the amount of money you want, take them to Mr. Grayson's bank. Only do not tell him I gave them to you. I bought them yesterday and was going to lock them up in my safe deposit vault, only I could not leave my shop. Oh, you needn't look so scared. They are good,” and he loosened the wrapper.
Jack sprang from his seat. For a moment he could not speak.
“But, Mr. Cohen! Do you know I haven't any security to offer you, and that I have only my salary and—”
“Have I asked you for any?” Isaac replied with a slight shrug, a quizzical smile crossing his face.
“No—but—”
“Ah, then, we will not talk about it. You are young—you are hard-working; you left a very rich home on Fifth Avenue to go and live in a dirty hotel in a country village—all because you were honest; you risked your life to save your employer; and now you want to go into debt to save a friend. Ah—you see, I know all about you, my dear Mr. John Breen. Mr. Grayson has told me, and if he had not, I could read your face. No—no—no—we will not talk about such things as cent per cent and security. No—no—I am very glad I had the bonds where I could get at them quick. There now—do you run home as fast as you can and tell your friend. He is more unhappy than anybody.”
Jack had his breath now and he had also made up his mind. Every drop of blood in his body was in revolt. Take money from a Jew tailor whom he had not seen half a dozen times; with whom he had no business relations or dealings, or even social acquaintance?
He laid the bonds back on the desk.
“I cannot take them, Mr. Cohen. I thank you most sincerely, but—no—you must not give them to me. I—”
Isaac wheeled suddenly and drew himself up. His little mouse eyes were snapping, and his face fiery red.
“You will not take them! Why?”
“I don't know—I can't!”
“I know!” he cried angrily, but with a certain dignity. “It is because I am a Jew. Not because I am a tailor—you have too much sense for that—but because I am a Jew!”
“Oh, Mr. Cohen!”
“Yes—I know—I see inside of you. I read you just as if you were a page in a book. Who taught you to think that? Not your Uncle Peter; he loves me—I love him. Who taught you such nonsense?” His voice had risen with every sentence. In his indignation he looked twice his size. “Is not my money as good as that man Breen's—who insults you when you go to him?—and who laughed at you? Have I laughed at you? Does Mr. Grayson laugh?”
Jack tried to interrupt, but the tailor's words poured on.
“And now let me tell you one thing more, Mr. John Breen. I do not give you the bonds. I give them to Mr. Grayson. Never once has he insulted me as you do now. All these years—fifteen years this winter—he has been my friend. And now when the boy whom he loves wants some money for a friend, and Mr. Grayson has none to give him, and I, who am Mr. Grayson's friend, come to help that boy out of his trouble, you—you—remember, you who have nothing to do with it—you turn up your nose and stop it all. Are you not ashamed of yourself?”
Jack's eyes blazed. He was not accustomed to be spoken to in that way by anybody; certainly not by a tailor.
“Then give them to Uncle Peter,” Jack flung back. “See what he will say.”
“No, I will not give them to your Uncle Peter. It will spoil everything with me if he knows about it. He always does things for me behind my back. He never lets me know. Now I shall do something for him behind his back and not let him know.”
“But—”
“There are no buts! Listen to me, young man. I have no son; I have no grandchild; I live here alone—you see how small it is? Do you know why?—because I am happiest here. I know what it is to suffer, and I know what it is for other people to suffer. I have seen more misery in London in a year than you will see in your whole life. Those ten bonds there are of no more use to me than an extra coat of paint on that door. I have many more like them shut up in a box. Almost every day people come to me for money—sometimes they get it—oftener they do not. I have no money for beggars, or for idlers, or for liars. I have worked all my life, and shall to the end—and so must they. Now and then something happens like this. Now do you understand?”
Again Jack tried to speak. His anger was gone; the pathos in the Jew's voice had robbed him of all antagonism, but Cohen would allow no interruptions.
“And now one thing more before I let you speak, And then I am through. In all the years I have known Mr. Grayson, this is the first time I have ever been able to help him with the only thing I have that can help him—my money. If it was five times what you want, he should have it. Do you hear? Five times!”
Isaac threw himself into his chair and sat with his chin in his hand. The last few words had come in a dry, choking whisper—as if they had been pumped from the depths of his heart.
Jack instinctively put out his hand and touched the Jew's knee.
“Will you please forgive me, Mr. Cohen—and will you please listen to me. I won't tell you a lie. I did feel that way at first—I do not now. I will take the bonds, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for them. You will never know how much good they will do; I have hardly slept since I knew I had to get this money. I am, perhaps, too tired to think straight, but you must do something for me—you must make it right with my own conscience. I want to sign something—give you something as security. I have only one thing in the world and that is some ore property my father left me in Maryland. At present it is worthless and may always be, but still it is all I have. Let me give you this. If it turns out to be of value you can take out your loan with interest and give me the rest; if it does not, I will pay it back as I can; it may be ten years or it may be less, but I will pay it if I live.”
Isaac raised his head. “Well, that is fair.” His voice was again under control. “Not for me—but for you. Yes, that is quite right for you to feel that way. Next week you can bring in the papers.” He picked up the bonds. “Now put these in your inside pocket and look out for them as you cross the ferry. Good-by.”
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