II. A MISER'S HOUSEHOLD.

Peter Manson owned a small house in an obscure street. It was a weather-beaten tenement of wood, containing some six or eight rooms, all of which, with one exception, were given over to dirt, cobwebs, gloom, and desolation. Peter might readily have let the rooms which he did not require for his own use, but so profound was his distrust of human nature, that not even the prospect of receiving rent for the empty rooms could overcome his apprehension of being robbed by neighbors under the same roof. For Peter trusted not his money to banks or railroads, but wanted to have it directly under his own eye or within his reach. As for investing his gold in the luxuries of life, or even in what were generally considered its absolute necessaries, we have already seen that Peter was no such fool as that. A gold[17] eagle was worth ten times more to him than its equivalent in food or clothing.

With more than his usual alacrity, old Peter Manson, bearing under his cloak the fresh loaf which he had just procured from the baker on such advantageous terms, hastened to his not very inviting home.

Drawing from his pocket a large and rusty door-key, he applied it to the door. It turned in the lock with a creaking sound, and the door yielding to Peter's push he entered.

The room which he appropriated to his own use was in the second story. It was a large room, of some eighteen feet square, and, as it is hardly necessary to say, was not set off by expensive furniture. The articles which came under this denomination were briefly these,—a cherry table which was minus one leg, whose place had been supplied by a broom handle fitted in its place; three hard wooden chairs of unknown antiquity; an old wash-stand; a rusty stove which Peter had picked up cheap at an auction, after finding that a stove burned out less fuel than a fireplace; a few articles of crockery of different[18] patterns, some cracked and broken; a few tin dishes, such as Peter found essential in his cooking; and a low truckle bedstead with a scanty supply of bedclothes.

Into this desolate home Peter entered.

There was an ember or two left in the stove, which the old man contrived, by hard blowing, to kindle into life. On these he placed a few sticks, part of which he had picked up in the street early in the morning, and soon there was a little show of fire, over which the miser spread his hands greedily as if to monopolize what little heat might proceed therefrom. He looked wistfully at the pile of wood remaining, but prudence withheld him from putting on any more.

"Everything costs money," he muttered to himself. "Three times a day I have to eat, and that costs a sight. Why couldn't we get along with eating once a day? That would save two thirds. Then there's fire. That costs money, too. Why isn't it always summer? Then we shouldn't need any except to cook by. It seems a sin to throw away good, bright, precious gold on what is going to be[19] burnt up and float away in smoke. One might almost as well throw it into the river at once. Ugh! only to think of what it would cost if I couldn't pick up some sticks in the street. There was a little girl picking up some this morning when I was out. If it hadn't been for her, I should have got more. What business had she to come there, I should like to know?"

"Ugh, ugh!"

The blaze was dying out, and Peter was obliged, against his will, to put on a fresh supply of fuel.

By this time the miser's appetite began to assert itself, and rising from his crouching position over the fire he walked to the table on which he had deposited his loaf of bread. With an old jack-knife he carefully cut the loaf into two equal parts. One of these he put back into the closet. From the same place he also brought out a sausage, and placing it over the fire contrived to cook it after a fashion. Taking it off he placed it on a plate, and seated himself on a chair by the table.

[20]

It was long since the old man, accustomed to stale bread,—because he found it cheaper,—had tasted anything so delicious. No alderman ever smacked his lips over the most exquisite turtle soup with greater relish than Peter Manson over his banquet.

"It is very good," he muttered, with a sigh of satisfaction. "I don't fare so well every day. If it hadn't been for that unlucky piece of gold, perhaps the baker would have let me had another loaf at the same price."

He soon despatched the half loaf which he allotted to his evening meal.

"I think I could eat the other half," he said, with unsatisfied hunger; "but I must save that for breakfast. It is hurtful to eat too much. Besides, here is my sausage."

The sausage was rather burned than cooked, but Peter was neither nice nor fastidious. He did not eat the whole of the sausage, however, but reserved one half of this, too, for breakfast, though it proved so acceptable to his palate that he came near yielding to the temptation of eating the whole. But prudence, or rather avarice, prevailed, and[21] shaking his head with renewed determination, he carried it to the closet and placed it on the shelf.

Between seven and eight o'clock Peter prepared to go to bed, partly because this would enable him to dispense with a fire, the cost of which he considered so ruinous. He had but just commenced his preparations for bed when a loud knock was heard at the street door.

At the first sound of the knocking Peter Manson started in affright. Such a thing had not occurred in his experience for years.

"It's some drunken fellow," thought Peter. "He's mistaken the house. I'll blow out the candle, and then he'll think there's nobody here."

He listened again, in hopes to hear the receding steps of the visitor, but in vain. After a brief interval there came another knock, louder and more imperative than the first.

Peter began to feel a little uneasy.

"Why don't he go?" he muttered, peevishly.[22] "He can't have anything to do with me. Nobody ever comes here. He's mistaken the house."

His reflections were here interrupted by a volley of knocks, each apparently louder than the last.

"Oh dear, what shall I do?" exclaimed the miser with a ludicrous mixture of terror and perplexity. "It's some desperate ruffian, I know it is. I wish the police would come. I shall be robbed and murdered."

Peter went to the window and put his head out, hoping to discover something of his troublesome visitor. The noise of opening the window attracted his attention.

"Hilloa!" he shouted. "I thought I'd make you hear some time or other. I began to think you were as deaf as a post, or else had kicked the bucket."

"Who's there?" asked Peter, in a quavering voice.

"Who's there! Come down and see, and don't leave a fellow to hammer away all night at your old rat-trap. Come down, and open the door."

[23]

"This ain't the house," said Peter. "You've made a mistake. Nobody ever comes here."

"No more I should think they would, if you always keep 'em waiting as long as you have me. Come along down, and let me in."

"But I tell you," persisted Peter, who didn't at all like the visitor's manners, "that you've made a mistake. This ain't the house."

"Ain't what house, I'd like to know?"

"It ain't the house you think it is," said the old man, a little puzzled by this question.

"And what house do I think it is? Tell me that, you old——"

Probably the sentence would have been finished in a manner uncomplimentary to Peter, but perhaps, from motives of policy, the stranger suppressed what he had intended to say.

"I don't know," returned Peter, at a loss for a reply, "but there's a mistake somewhere. Nobody comes to see me."

"I shouldn't think they would," muttered the outsider, "but every rule has its exceptions, and somebody's come to see you now."

[24]

"You've mistaken the person."

"No, I haven't. Little chance of making a mistake. You're old Peter Manson."

"He has come to see me," thought Peter, uneasily; "but it cannot be for any good end. I won't let him in; no, I won't let him in."

"Well what are you going to do about it?" asked his would-be visitor, impatiently.

"It's too late to see you to-night."

"Fiddlestick!" retorted the other. "It isn't eight yet."

"I'm just going to bed," added Peter, becoming momentarily more uneasy at the man's obstinacy.

"Going to bed at half past seven! Come, now, that's all a joke. You don't take me for a fool!"

"But I am," urged Peter, "I always do. I'm very poor, and can't afford to keep a fire and light going all the evening."

"You poor! Well, may be you are. But that ain't neither here nor there. I have got some important business to see you about, and you must let me in."

"Come to-morrow."

[25]

"It's no use; I must see you to-night. So just come down and let me in, or it'll be the worse for you."

"What a dreadful ruffian!" groaned Peter; "I wish the watch would come along, but it never does when it's wanted. Go away, good man," he said, in a wheedling tone. "Go away, and come again to-morrow."

"I tell you I won't go away. I must see you to-night."

Convinced that the man was not to be denied, Peter, groaning with fear, went down, and reluctantly drawing the bolt, admitted the visitor.