Gibbs entered the offices and glanced about at the clerks, who worked in silence; on each of them had been impressed a subdued, obedient demeanor; they glanced at Gibbs surreptitiously. It was plain that all spirit had been drilled out of them; they were afraid of something, and, driven by their necessities, they toiled like machines. Gibbs felt a contempt for them as great as the contempt he felt for the floor-walkers below, a contempt almost as great as that he had for Bills himself. A timid man of about forty-five, with a black beard sprouting out of the pallor of his skin, came up, and lifted his brows with amazement when Gibbs, ignoring him, made plainly for the door that was lettered: "Mr.
Bills."
"Mr. Bills is engaged just now," the man said in a hushed tone.
"Well, tell him Mr. Gibbs is here."
"But he's engaged just now, sir; he's dictating." The man leaned forward and whispered the word "dictating" impressively.
But Gibbs kept on toward the door; then the man blocked his way.
"Tell him if you want to," said Gibbs, "if not, I will."
It seemed that Gibbs might walk directly through the man, who retreated from him, and, having no other egress, went through Mr. Bills's door. A moment more and he held it open for Gibbs.
Bills was sitting at an enormous desk which was set in perfect order; on either side of him were baskets containing the letters he was methodically answering. Bills's head showed over the top of the desk; it was a round head covered with short black hair, smoothly combed and shining. His black side-whiskers were likewise short and smooth. His neck was bound by a white collar and a little pious, black cravat, and he wore black clothes. His smoothly-shaven lips were pursed in a self-satisfied way; he was brisk and unctuous, very clean and proper, and looked as if he devoutly anointed himself with oil after his bath.
In a word, he bore himself as became a prominent business man, who, besides his own large enterprise, managed a popular Sunday-school, and gave Sunday afternoon "talks" on "Success," for the instruction of certain young men of the city, too mild and acquiescent to succeed as anything but conformers.
"Ah, Mr. Gibbs," he said. "You will excuse me a moment."
Bills turned and resumed the dictation of his stereotyped phrases of business. He dictated several letters, then dismissed his stenographer and, turning about, said with a smile:
"Now, Mr. Gibbs."
Gibbs drew his chair close to Bills's desk, and, taking a package from his pocket, laid out the stamps.
"One hundred sheets of twos, fifty of ones," he said.
Bills had taken off his gold glasses and slowly lowered them to the end of their fine gold chain; he rubbed the little red marks the glasses left on the bridge of his nose, and in his manner there was an uncertainty that seemed unexpected by Gibbs.
"I was about to suggest, Mr. Gibbs," said Bills, placing his fingers tip to tip, "that you see our Mr. Wilson; he manages the mail-order department, now."
"Not for mine," said Gibbs decisively. "I've always done business with you. I don't know this fellow Wilson."
Bills, choosing to take it as a tribute, smiled and went on:
"I think we're fully stocked just now, but--how would a sixty per cent.
proposition strike you?"
"No," said Gibbs, as decisively as before.
"No?" repeated Bills.
"No," Gibbs went on, "seventy-five."
Bills thought a moment, absently lifting the rustling sheets.
"How many did you say there were?"
"They come to one-fifty," said Gibbs; "count 'em."
Bills did count them, and when he had done, he said:
"That would make it one-twelve-fifty?"
"That's it."
"Very well. Shall I pass the amount to your credit?"
"No; I'll take the cash."
"I thought perhaps Mrs. Gibbs would be wanting some things in the summer line," said Bills.
Gibbs shook his head.
"We pay cash," said he.
Bills smiled, got up, walked briskly with a little spring to each step and left the room. He returned presently, closed the door, sat down, counted the bills out on the leaf of his desk, laid a silver half-dollar on top and said:
"There you are."
Gibbs counted the money carefully, rolled it up deliberately and stuffed it into his trousers pocket.
Gibbs had one more errand that morning, and he drove in his hansom-cab to the private bank Amos Hunter conducted as a department of his trust company. Gibbs deposited his money, and then went into Hunter's private office. Hunter was an old man, thin and spare, with white hair, and a gray face. He sat with his chair turned away from his desk, which he seldom used except when it became necessary for him to sign his name, and then he did this according to the direction of a clerk, who would lay a paper before him, dip a pen in ink, hand it to Hunter, and point to the space for the signature. Hunter was as economical of his energy in signing his name as in everything else; he wrote it "A. Hunter." He sat there every day without moving, as it seemed, apparently determined to eke out his life to the utmost. His coachman drove him down town at ten each morning, at four in the afternoon he came and drove him home again. It was only through the windows of the carriage and through the windows of his private office that Hunter looked out on a world with which for forty years he had never come in personal contact. His inert manner gave the impression of great age and senility; but the eyes under the thick white brows were alert, keen, virile. He was referred to generally as "old Amos."
Gibbs went in, a parcel in his hand.
"Just a little matter of some mutilated currency," he said.
Old Amos's thin lips seemed to smile.
"You may leave it and we'll be glad to forward it to Washington for you, Mr. Gibbs," he said, without moving.
Gibbs laid the bundle on old Amos's desk, and, taking up a bit of paper, wrote on it and handed it to Hunter.
"Have you a memorandum there?" asked Hunter. He glanced at the paper and wrote on the slip:
"A. H."
Then he resumed the attitude that had scarcely been altered, laid his white hands in his lap and sat there with his thin habitual smile.
Gibbs thanked him and went away. His morning's work among the business men of the city was done.
IV
It promised to be a quiet evening at Danny Gibbs's. There had been a vicious electrical storm that afternoon, but by seven o'clock the lightning played prettily in the east, the thunder rolled away, the air cooled, and the rain fell peacefully. The storm had been predicted to Joe Mason in the rheumatism that had bitten his bones for two days, but now the ache had ceased, and the relief was a delicious sensation he was content simply to realize. He sat in the back room, smoking and thinking, a letter in his hand. Gibbs's wife had gone to bed--she had been drinking that day. Old Johnson, the sot who, by acting as porter, paid Gibbs for his shelter and the whisky he drank--he ate very little, going days at a time without food--had set the bar-room in order and disappeared. Gibbs was somewhere about, but all was still, and Mason liked it so. From time to time Mason glanced at the letter. The letter was a fortnight old; it had been written from a workhouse in a distant city by his old friend Dillon, known to the yeggs as Slim. Mason had not seen Dillon for a year--not, in fact, since they had been released from Dannemora. This was the letter: