"But you forget how much it cost you to get the charters of these banks—" interrupted Fetch. "The amount of champagne that I myself forwarded to Trenton and to Harrisburg, would float a small brig. Then there was some ready money that you loaned to Members of Legislature—put that down Mr. Yorke."
"We'll say $5000 for champagne, and $25,000 loaned to Members of Legislature (though they don't bring anything near that now), why we have a total of $25,000 for expenses incurred in procuring charters. Deduct that from $450,000 and you still have $425,000. A neat sum, Fetch."
"Yes, but you must look to your character. You must come out of it with flyin' colors. After nearly all the notes have been bought in, by ourselves or our agents, we must announce that having recovered from our late reverses, we are now prepared to redeem all our notes, dollar for dollar."
"And Fetch, if we manage it right, there'll be only $10,000 worth left in circulation, at the time we make the announcement. That will take $10,000 from our total of $425,000, leavin' us still the sum of $415,000. A pretty sum, Fetch."
"You may as well strike off that $15,000 for extra expenses—paragraphs in some of the newspapers—grand juries, and other little incidents of that kind. O, you'll come out of it with character."
"Ghoul of the Blerze will assail me, eh?" said Israel, fidgeting in his chair: "He'll talk o' nothin' else than Chow Bank, Muddy Run and Terrapin Hollow, for months to come—eh, Fetch?"
"For years, for years," responded Fetch, "It will be nuts for Ghoul."
"And that cursed affair last night!" continued Yorke, as though thinking aloud, "Seventy-one thousand gone at one slap."
Fetch looked funnily at his principal from beneath his gold spectacles: "No? It was real then? I thought—"
Mr. Yorke abruptly consigned the thoughts of Mr. Fetch to a personage who shall be nameless, and then continued:
"It was real—a bona fide robbery. Seventy-one thousand at a slap! By-the-bye, Fetch, has Blossom been here to-night—Blossom the police officer?"
"Couldn't get in; too much of a crowd in the street."
"I did not intend him to come by the front door. He was to come up the back way—about this hour—he gave me some hope this afternoon. That was an unfortunate affair last night!"
"How they roar! Listen!" said Fetch, bending himself into a listening attitude.
And again that ominous sound came from the street without—the combined groans and curses of six thousand human beings.
"Like buffaloes!" quietly remarked Mr. Yorke.
"Like demons!" added Mr. Fetch. "Hear 'em."
"Was there much fuss to-day, when we suspended, Fetch?"
"Quantities of market people, mechanics, widows and servant maids," said the man of business. "I should think you'd stood a pretty good chance of being torn to pieces, if you'd been visible. Had this happened south, you'd have been tarred and feathered. Here you'd only be tore to pieces."
A step was heard in the back part of the room, and in a moment Blossom, in his pictorial face and bear-skin over-coat, appeared upon the scene.
"What is the matter with your head?" asked Mr. Fetch—"Is that a handkerchief or a towel?" He pointed to something like a turban, which Poke-Berry Blossom wore under his glossy hat.
Blossom sunk sullenly into a chair, without a word.
"What's the matter?" exclaimed Yorke, "Have you—"
"Suppose you had sixteen inches taken out of yer skull," responded Blossom in a sullen tone, "You'd know what was the matter. Thunder!" he added, "this is a rum world!"
"Did you—" again began Yorke, brushing his gray whiskers and fidgeting in his chair.
"Yes I did. I tracked 'em to a groggery up town airly this evenin'. I had 'em all alone, to myself, up stairs. I caught the young 'un examinin' the valise—I seed the dimes with my own eyes. I—"
"You arrested them?" gasped Yorke.
"How could I, when I ain't a real police, and hadn't any warrant? I did grapple with 'em; but the young 'un got out on the roof with the valise, and I was left to manage the old 'un as best I could. I tried to make him b'lieve that I had a detachment down stairs, but he gi'n me a lick over the top-knot that made me see Fourth of July, I tell you. There I laid, I don't know how long. When I got my senses, they was gone."
"But you pursued them?" asked Yorke, with a nervous start.
"With a hole in my head big enough to put a market-basket in?" responded Blossom, with a pitying smile, "what do you think I'm made of? Do you think I'm a Japan mermaid or an Egyptian mummy?"
It will be perceived that Mr. Blossom said nothing about the house which stood next to the Yellow Mug; he did not even mention the latter place by name. Nor did he relate how he pursued Nameless into this house, and how after an unsuccessful pursuit, he returned into the garret of the Mug, where Ninety-One, (who for a moment or two had been hiding upon the roof,) grappled with him, and laid him senseless by a well planted blow. Upon these topics Mr. Blossom maintained a mysterious silence. His reasons for this course may hereafter appear.
"And so you've given up the affair?" said Yorke, sinking back into his chair.
Now the truth is, that Blossom, chafed by his inquiries and mortified at his defeat, was cogitating an important matter to himself—"Can I make anything by givin' Israel into the hands of the mob? I might lead 'em up the back stairs. Lord! how they'd make the fur fly! But who'd pay me?" The italicized query troubled Blossom and made him thoughtful.
"And so the seventy thousand's clean gone," exclaimed Fetch, in a mournful tone: "It makes one melancholy to think of it."
"Pardon me, Mr. Yorke, for this intrusion," said a bland voice, "but I have followed Mr. Blossom to this room. I caught sight of him a few moments ago as he left Broadway, and tried to speak to him as he pushed through the crowd in front of your door, but in vain. So being exceedingly anxious to see him, I was forced to follow him up stairs, into your room."
"Colonel Tarleton!" ejaculated Yorke.
"The handsom' Curnel!" chorused Blossom.
It was indeed the handsome Colonel, who with his white coat buttoned tightly over his chest and around his waist, stood smiling and bowing behind the chair of Berry Blossom.
"You did not tell any one of the back door," cried Yorke—"If you did—"
"Why then, (you were about to remark I believe,) we should have a great many more persons in the room, than it would be pleasant for you to see, just now."
The Colonel made one of his most elegant bows as he made this remark. Mr. Yorke bit his nails but made no reply.
"Mr. Blossom, a word with you." The Colonel took the police officer by the arm and led him far back into that part of the room most remote from the table.
"What's up, Mister?" asked Blossom, arranging his turban.
As they stood there, in the gloom which pervaded that part of the room, the Colonel answered him with a low and significant whisper:
"Do you remember that old ruffian who was charged last night in the cars with—"
"You mean old Ninety-One, as he calls hisself," interrupted Blossom—"Well, I guess I do."
"Very good," continued the Colonel.—"Now suppose this ruffian had concealed himself in the house of a wealthy man, with the purpose of committing a robbery this very night!"
Blossom was all ears.
"Well,