The Brother Clerks; A Tale of New-Orleans.

CHAPTER XXII.

Guly took his place with a more cheerful heart than the early morning had promised him; for the consciousness of having performed a kindly deed, imparted a buoyancy to his spirits, which on the previous night he had almost fancied he could never experience again. He had been in his place but a few moments, when a lady entered to purchase some embroidery. The article she desired was an expensive one, and the contents of the whole box were searched before she found it. As Guly was folding it for her, he perceived, as he held it between him and the light, that there were several threads broken here and there between the delicate fibres of the work, as if it had been eaten by an insect. He immediately pointed out the defect to his customer. She examined it, and finding that the piece had suffered in the same way throughout, she expressed her thanks to him warmly for having made her aware of the imperfection, and also manifested her regret at not being able to take the article under such circumstances, for she had intended it as a bridal gift to a young friend of hers, and would have felt deeply mortified if the discovery had been made after the presentation. After a few more trifling purchases, she turned away, and Guly restored the rejected piece of work to its place, and put the box upon the shelf. As he turned round, his eye fell upon the face of his employer, who stood bolt upright on the opposite side of the counter.

Guly bowed politely, and wished him good morning; but the hard face before him relaxed not a muscle, and stared straight and rigidly into the boy's eyes. It needed no second glance to show that Mr. Delancey was very much enraged.

"Did I see you, sir," he demanded, at last, in a tone far from being inaudible, "point out to a customer a defect in her purchase, and so lose a sale?"

"I certainly did so, sir; you would not have me sell an imperfect piece of goods, knowing that it was so, for perfect, and take the full price for the same, would you?"

"What was it to you, I'd like to know, after she had examined the piece, and declared that it suited her, whether there was a blemish in it or not, if she had not discovered it?"

"She might have discovered it afterwards, and would no doubt have thought I meant to deceive her, and, in all probability, I should have lost her custom altogether."

"Nonsense! young man; she would have sent it to her milliner to make up, and in an hour the imperfection would have never been discovered. The next time I see you do a thing of this kind, you lose your place."

"Then I must, sir," returned Guly, firmly; "I can never sacrifice principle to profit, under any circumstances."

"You're a fool," said Delancey; pale with anger at the firm but mild demeanor of his clerk. "How much would the sale have amounted to?"

"Thirty-five dollars."

"It shall be taken from your salary. Teach you better another time."

"Very well, sir. Wilkins, be kind enough to mark my salary thirty-five dollars less, if you please."

Mr. Delancey had carried on his part of the conversation in so loud a tone, that it was audible to a number, who were not too busy with their own affairs to pay heed to it; but Guly felt deeply chagrined to observe, as Mr. Delancey turned away, that his late customer had been standing just behind the merchant, examining some goods at another counter, and had probably heard all that had passed. As she left the store she looked up at Guly, with a smile, bowed to him, and passed out.

As small as Guly's salary was, he looked upon the loss which he had suffered as a mere trifle, when compared with the pleasure he received from an approving conscience. Ho felt that he had acted right, not only in exposing the defects in the desired article, but in remaining firm to his sense of duty under the anger of his employer.

The incident awakened in his breast a wish to know the name of the lady who had looked at the goods, and he turned to Mr. Hull, the clerk who stood next to him, to make inquiry. Hull informed him that he knew little of her except as a customer; that he had never learned her name, as he did those of most of his customers, by sending goods to their houses, for she always came in her carriage, and brought her own servant. He added, that her affability had won the esteem of all the clerks; more than this he could not tell.

When the dinner hour arrived, Quirk sauntered down past Guly, looking at him with an impudent stare. He turned back, as he reached the door, and stopped at the counter.

"Anything you will have, Mr. Quirk?"

"No, I reckon not; when I do, though, I'll know where to come to find an honest chap to deal with," and he curled his disagreeable mouth into a sneer.

Guly was silent; not wishing to prolong the conversation with one for whom he felt such an aversion. Quirk, however, was not to be put off in this manner; and drawing out his tooth-pick, he began using it among his huge masticators, and continued:-

"I s'pose you thought the boss was of the Puritan stamp, and would perhaps promote you for that nice little affair of this morning, eh? You found yourself mistaken, I reckon, when you had the thirty-five charged over, ha, ha!"

"I thought, sir, of acting honestly, only; and since you happened to overhear the conversation, let me tell you that I should have done the same thing the next moment, under like circumstances."

"Well, you're a precious ninny, that's all I've got to say about it."

"If so, perhaps you'll be willing to lounge on your own counter instead of mine, Mr. Quirk."

"No," he replied, at the same time changing his position, "I'm comfortable enough here; so long as the boss don't see me, I believe I will stay where I am."

Guly made no reply.

"Well, say," said Quirk, again wheeling round so as to face Guly, "what's the reason you can't be a little sociable with a feller, when he comes and tries to talk with you. Pshaw, your brother is worth two of you."

"I prefer devoting business hours to business," returned Guly.

"And paying for lost sales out of your own salary. Let me advise you, if you are going to stay in this place, to let the customers find their own blemishes, and take the responsibility."

"I shall always act according to my own judgment in such cases, Mr. Quirk," replied Guly, taking his hat, and leaving the young gentleman to pour out his advice to an unoccupied counter. Arthur had gone to dinner before him; so Guly trudged on alone, and, on entering the restaurant, found Wilkins seated at the little table, which the three so frequently shared together, by himself.

"Where's Arthur?" inquired Guly, anxiously.

"He finished before me to-day, for a wonder," returned Wilkins, smiling, "and went out some time since; you probably passed each other on opposite sides of the way."

This last suggestion quite comforted Guly, whose apprehensions for his brother had, of late, become most painfully awakened, and he fell off into conversation with his companion, upon the various topics which chanced to present themselves to their minds.

Suddenly Wilkins looked up, and remarked:-

"I have an engagement for you to-night, Guly."

"For me! what is it, pray?"

"Guess."

"Oh, I never can. You must tell me, if you ever expect me to know."

"What would you say, if I told you 'twas a visit to Blanche?"

"Can it be possible?"

Guly blushed very deeply, which Wilkins observed, and commented upon with mischievous delight.

"Did the invitation come from her own lips, Wilkins?"

"To be sure it did."

"And you accepted in my name?"

"Certainly."

"Thank you! I shall be delighted."

"At eight o'clock, then."

"Very well."

And so they parted, and Guly was left alone at the little table.

It was an hour when the restaurant was pretty well filled, and the numerous inmates busily discussed the news, foreign and political, and affairs private and public, in their various languages and different manners. Guly looked round from his solitary table, an amused spectator of the scene. But suddenly his attention was attracted by a sound of shuffling steps upon the floor, and turning, he beheld his friend the dwarf, making his way in between the tables, with a dexterity which his long canes would scarcely warrant.

Though surprised at the presence of one so poor in such a place, Guly advanced, and placed a chair for him at a table near his own, and helped him to mount upon it.

"Hih, hih! Monsieur; you are very good," puffed the little man, quite out of breath, without looking up at his kind assistant. "Give me a little bean soup, if you please, Monsieur. I am very poor, and very hungry to-day. Must spend one picayune for one cheap dinner, or else must have one cheap coffin made for me at the expense of the corporation! Hih, hih!"

Guly smiled at this odd speech, and rang the little bell for the waiter. As he did so, the dwarf suddenly wheeled his head round on his slender neck, and tipped his one eye curiously up at the face beside him.

"'Tis you, Monsieur. Be gor, I thought it was one waiter. Hih, hih! I am very hungry, Monsieur."

"Here is the waiter. What will you have, my friend?"

"One cheap dinner-bean soup-I am so very poor. Ah, Monsieur, 'tis hard to be so poor."

Guly ordered some meat to be added to the old man's frugal repast, and then returned to his own table to finish his dinner. The dwarf seemed to dispatch his meal with a fine relish, though interrupting himself in the process of eating, every few minutes, by twisting his crooked body half-way round, and turning his one eye up at Guly, as if to make sure he was there.

The singular appearance of the dwarf, and the ready and gentle assistance rendered him by Guly, had attracted considerable attention, from those who yet lingered over their viands; and when Guly took his seat, a young exquisite, who occupied a table just at his left, and who had been obliged to use two of his fingers to part his glossy moustache, while he passed in his food with his other hand, now turned round, and regarded him with an impertinent stare.

"I say, Mistar, is that gentleman with crutches yondaw, a brothaw of yours?"

"By the laws of humanity he is, sir."

"Awr! I'm glad to find there's no closaw tie, so I can express my opinion of him. He is a scamp, sah!"

"Indeed! why so?"

"Because he is, sah!"

"You know him?"

"Perfectly well!"

"And he is a scamp?"

"If he's no relation of yours, yes, sah."

"Does he tipple?"

"Not zat I know, sah!"

"Steal?"

"No, sah!"

"Meddle with other people's affairs?"

"Yes, sah! zat is, every day he puts his disgwusting digits on my spotless cassimeres, and asks for money!"

"You of course grant his request?"

"Not I, sah! I feel always like touching the twip of me pwatent leather gaitaw just beneath the lowermost extreme of his spinal column, and elevating his dangling supporters a few feet in the air, before pwopelling him into the nearest guttaw."

"A very unpleasant feeling, most certainly."

"Vewy true, sah!"

"Yes, sah, especially when you know your stwaps are too tight to admit of any such use of your unmentionable members," squeaked the dwarf, mockingly, who had sat unmoved within hearing distance of the whole conversation.

A roar of laughter followed this speech, through which the dandy sat frowning darkly. When it ceased, he sprang near the dwarf, shouting:

"You mean to insult me, do you, eh?"

"Hope you wouldn't notice such a scamp as me, sah!" squeaked the dwarf in answer.

"I will pwummel your cwooked legs, sah!"

"Wipe that off of your own, sah, first," cried the other, dexterously turning a fresh plate of bean soup over the dandy's "spwotless cassimeres."

Another roar of laughter followed this act, amid which the exquisite made his exit with his pocket hankerchief spread over his lap, swearing he would "go stwaight and sue for dwamages," that he was "scalded to death by the dem beggar, and he would have revenge for his ruined trousers, be gar!"

Guly, after assisting his helpless friend to his crutches and a firm standing, was about to leave; but the dwarf detained him by twitching the skirt of his coat, then exclaimed:

"Hih, hih! monsieur, I lost my bean soup but I saved my head, hih! hih! bean, soup's good, but 'twas spilt in a glorious cause; paid for monsieur?"

This last question was put in such a comic manner, with that one eye tipped up towards him, that Guly could not repress a smile; but he cordially satisfied him on that point, feeling still able, in spite of his diminished salary, to pay for a beggar's dinner, which is more than many, with their well filled purses, can make themselves afford to do.

Freeing himself from the companionship of his singular friend, Guly hurried away to the store; with every light footfall, and each thrilling heart-throb, whispering to himself one word, which fell upon his thoughts in the midst of the crowd and din through which he hastened, like the tinkling music of a waterfall in the midst of a broad desert, "Blanche! Blanche!"