A Debt of Honor

“You may be right,” said Standish. “If he is here I shall be glad to meet him and thank him once more for the service he did me.”

“It is clear there is something between them,” decided Gerald, “and that something must relate to me and the papers Mr. Wentworth is so anxious to secure.”

But in that event it puzzled Gerald that Mr. Standish seemed to take no special pains to cultivate their acquaintance – as he might naturally have been expected to do. He was destined to find out that Standish was not idle.

One day – the fifth of his stay in St. Louis – Gerald was walking in one of the poorer districts of the city, when a boy of ten, with a thin, pallid face and shabby clothes, sidled up to him.

“Oh, mister,” he said, whimpering, “won’t you come wid me? I’m afraid my mudder will beat me if I go home alone.”

“What makes you think your mother will beat you?”

“Coz she sent me out for a bottle of whisky this mornin’ and I broke it.”

“Does your mother drink whisky?” asked Gerald compassionately.

“Yes, mister, she’s a reg’lar tank, she is.”

“Have you any brothers or sisters?”

“I have a little brudder. She licks him awful.”

“Have you no father?”

“No; he got killed on the railroad two years ago.”

“I am sorry for you,” said Gerald, in a tone of sympathy. “Here is a quarter.”

“Thank you, mister.”

“Perhaps that will prevent your mother from beating you.”

“I don’t know,” said the boy doubtfully. “Mudder’s a hard case. She’s awful strong. Won’t you go home with me?”

“I am afraid I can’t say anything that will make any impression on your mother. Where do you live?”

The boy pointed to a shabby house of three stories, situated not far away.

“It’s only a few steps, mister.”

“Perhaps I may be able to do the little fellow some good,” thought Gerald. “At any rate, as the house is so near, I may as well go in.”

“Very well,” he said aloud. “I’ll go in and see your mother. Do you think that she has been drinking lately?”

“No; I spilt the whisky. That’s why she’s mad.”

Gerald followed the boy to the house. His companion opened the outer door, and revealed a steep staircase covered with a very ragged oil-cloth, and led the way up.

“Come along!” he said.

When he reached the head of the first flight he kept on.

“Is it any higher up?”

“Yes, one story furder.”

Gerald followed the boy, inhaling, as he went up, musty and disagreeable odors, and felt that if it had not been on an errand of mercy he would have been inclined to retreat and make his way back to the street.

The boy pushed on to the rear room on the third floor, and opened the door a little way.

“Come in!” he said.

Gerald followed him in, and began to look around for the mother whom he had come to see. But the room appeared to be empty.

A sound startled him. It was the sound of a key in the lock. He turned quickly and found that his boy guide had mysteriously disappeared and left him alone.

He tried the door, only to confirm his suspicion that he had been locked in.

“What does it all mean?” he asked himself in genuine bewilderment.

He knocked loudly at the door, and called out, “Boy, open the door.”

The only answer was a discordant laugh, and he heard the steps of the boy as he hurried downstairs.

Gerald was completely bewildered. Had the boy been a man he would have been on his guard, but who could be suspicious of a street urchin, whose story seemed natural enough. What evil design could he have, or what could he do now that his victim was trapped?

“I wish he would come back, so that I might question him,” thought Gerald.

With the hope of bringing this about Gerald began to pound on the door.

“Come back here, boy!” he called out in a loud tone. “Come back, and let me out!”

But no one answered. In fact the boy who had proved so unworthy of his compassion was by this time in the street, laughing aloud at his successful maneuver.

“Dat’s a good one!” he said gleefully. “I got de bloke in good. Uncle Sam offered me half a dollar if I’d do it. I’ll strike him for a dollar if I can.”

After waiting five minutes Gerald tried a second fusillade on the door. This brought a response, not from his young jailer, but from a choleric German who lived opposite.

“I say, you stop dat or I’ll come in and break your kopf!” he said.

“Come in!” cried Gerald eagerly. “I have been locked in.”

“If I come in I mash you!”

“Come in, and I’ll take the risk.”

“How I come in widout de key?”

“I don’t know unless you break open the door.”