University of Virginia Library

26. Chapter XXVI.
The Inventor's Wife.

WHEN Mr. Jobson, the benevolent broker, diverged
from the side of Emily Marvin, his feelings of disappointment
at the orphan's decided rejection of his liberal
offers of protection, found vent in sundry tossings of
the head and smackings of the lips, as though he would
have given utterance to—“Ha, ha! we shall see!”—
“Pride and poverty!” and the like objurgatory sentences.
At the same time, an expression of no very gentle
character dwelt on the features of the man of business,
gradually deepening and darkening, as he hurried along,
into a facial gloom of the most threatening description;
and it was with this countenance, betokening no charitable
mood within, that he turned abruptly, at the corner of
a block in the next street, and penetrating a few steps
into an alley-way, stopped before the door of a small
wooden house, and thereat knocked with a most portentous
violence. It was immediately opened by a man, who,
upon seeing his visitor, shrunk mechanically backward.

“Aha, Dobbs! I've caught you—have I? You'd like
to have been out, eh? But I'm too smart for you, you
know, Dobbs, my good fellow.”

Saying this, and with a malicious grin, Mr. Jobson
pushed forward, backing the unresisting Dobbs into a
little entry-way, and thence into an apartment plainly
furnished, and having a cheap cotton curtain drawn across
one side, as if to conceal some bed or recess. A female
child, who had apparently been reading, sat with a book
upon her lap, near a small table, on which a candle was
burning, and, in a corner behind the stove, a woman
reclined in a rocking-chair.

“Go in, Dobbs—go in, I say!” exclaimed Jobson, as
his portly person pressed against the little man. “Comfortable
you have it here! Where's that brother of
yours—heh, Dobbs—the crazy fellow, you know?”

All this time, the proprietor of the humble dwelling
had been pushed forward into the middle of the room,
without venturing a word of reply to the broker, whose
overbearing manner appeared to deprive him of all resolution;
and now he silently dusted a chair, and handed it
to Jobson, who seated himself in it with a crash, and
drawing out his handkerchief, snorted loudly, and then
pursing his lips, commenced, with elevated head, a survey
of the apartment and its inmates.

“My brother is—in his room,” hesitated Dobbs.

“Aha! got a room to himself—heh? What's the
crazy man doing?—writing his book, I s'pose, Dobbs!”

“Walter is engaged, as usual,” said Dobbs, apologetically;
“but” —

“Oh, yes!—always a `but,' you know, Dobbs! If
it wasn't for `buts,' your good-for-nothing gim-cracks
might have made your fortune before this. But”—and

here the broker paused, and fixed his eyes upon the
inventor, whose cheek grew pale—“But, my fine fellow, I
want to know where's the eighty or ninety dollars you
owe me to come from? That's the `but' I'd like to have
answered.”

Mr. Jobson threw his right leg over his left, and began
to nurse it, while he elevated his chin to an angle, and
contracted his brows. Dobbs seemed to be incapable of
replying, but a voice from the corner here interposed
suddenly.

“Hubert! ask him to lend you the money at a hundred
per cent. interest,” said this voice, in a quavering tone
that indicated weakness, while, at the same time, it was
dry and caustic. Jobson turned suddenly towards the
stove.

“Aha!” he exclaimed, “so that's your drunken wife
that I've heard of! A sharp tongue's in the jade's head,
anyhow. I pity you, Dobbs—'pon my word, I do.” The
broker gave way to a chuckle, which was manifestly
forced.

“Pity him!” echoed the woman, who now rose suddenly
from her seat, and advanced towards the agent, in
spite of her husband's efforts to seize her hand and restrain
her. “Let me alone, Hubert! I'm not drunk
now!” she cried, stepping before the inventor, and placing
herself directly opposite Jobson, who grasped his gold-headed
cane, as if apprehensive of an assault. “Pity
him!—and well you may! you, who scrape dollars together,
and pass your days and nights in scheming to
defraud and oppress your fellow men! You may well

pity and despise the wretched husband of a worthless
wife!”

The woman dashed her hand to her forehead, as she
uttered these words, as if to cover the burning tears that
gushed from her inflamed eyes.

“Oh, Maria! Maria! do not talk so!” exclaimed her
husband. “It is not your fault! You are not worthless!
I ought never to have brought you to poverty by
my folly—my folly!”

Dobbs tried to take his wife's hand, as he said this, but
she waved him back.

“Hubert! leave me alone! This man has come here
to insult us because you have the misfortune to be in his
debt! He has heard the truth concerning me—that I
am drunken, worthless—a disgrace to you and to my
child!”—

“Oh, no! no, Maria!” cried the poor husband, lifting
his hands in supplication.

“I say, he has heard the truth!” went on the woman,
with strange composure. “And he comes here to insult,
to tread upon us, in our poverty and shame. Is it not
so?” she demanded, fiercely, of Jobson, with a step
nearer to him, as she spoke.

“I—I want my money,” replied the broker, quailing,
in spite of himself, before the determined bearing of the
woman whom he had exasperated. “I ask nothing but
my due!”

“Yes! your due!” repeated the female, scornfully.
“You found my poor, but honest, sensitively honest husband,
struggling, as none but he has ever struggled, to

overcome reverses, and obtain a livelihood. You leased
him this little but, exacting an exorbitant rent, and when,
in the effort to perfect his inventions, he found himself
cramped for means, you were pleased to take a mortgage
on machinery worth ten times the paltry debt which he
had contracted.”—

“And where's my security?—what have I to show for
my money?” interrupted the agent.

“What has he to show for years of patient labor?—
for months of privation?” cried the woman. “The fire
that destroyed your security, left him likewise a ruined
man—his shop, his machinery, his models—all gone!”

“Too true! too true!” murmured Dobbs, who had
retreated behind the stove, listening with trepidation
to his wife's defiant rehearsal of his transactions with
Jobson.

“I've got nothing to do with your husband's misfortunes,”
rejoined the broker, in a blustering tone. “If
he's a mind to be a fool, its his own look-out! I didn't
saddle troubles on him! All I want is my own, and that
I'll have, you know, ma'am—that I'll have.”

“And I'll pay, Mr. Jobson!” ejaculated Dobbs. “Every
cent—if you'll only give a little time. It's all I ask.”

“Yes—time!” sneered the agent. “And my rent runnin'
on! I tell you what, Dobbs, your family is entirely
too expensive for me. Two things are enough to make a
man poor, you know—a crazy brother, and a” —

Jobson laughed sardonically, and rapped the floor with
his cane.

“`Drunken wife,' you were about to say, Mr. Jobson,”

cried the woman, quickly. “Speak openly, sir; it is the
truth!”

“Well, drunken wife, if you wish, ma'am,” returned
the broker, maliciously.

At this moment, the curtain that hung near the wall
was violently agitated, and presently fell, detached from
the cord by which it was suspended, disclosing an extended
arm and hand, and the face of a man of about
thirty years of age, who lay extended on a settee, and
propped up by pillows. This man was dark in complexion,
with strongly defined lineaments, a profusion of
black, curling hair, and heavy beard of the same color.
His cheeks were lank and sallow, as from disease, and his
eyes sunken, but, at the present time, seemed to burn with
excitement, as they were directed full upon the broker's
countenance.

The unlooked-for apparition, so ghostly, yet threatening,
had the effect of disturbing Mr. Jobson's equanimity,
more than had all the denunciations of his debtor's wife.
The color retreated from his plethoric cheeks, and he
instinctively moved his chair backward But Mrs. Hubert
Dobbs raised her hand, as if to calm the invalid's emotion,
while her husband stole away from his corner, clasping
with one hand the young child, who had crept near her
father during the scene, and was looking anxiously up into
his troubled face.

“Well, sir!” said the woman, pointing to the agitated
stranger on the settee, “you have sneered at and insulted
your poor debtor before one who knows him not—you
have called me a drunken wife, which is, as I said, the

truth! for I came home here, last night, to my husband
and child, brutally intoxicated and helpless!—as I have
done a hundred times before. Now, hear me, you who
have branded me, and you, Hubert, my abused and patient
husband—and you, sir,” she added, turning to the invalid,
“whoever you are, whom his kindness shelters! hear what
I have now to say! Alice, bring me that book.” —

The child left her father's side, and approaching her
mother timidly, handed her the volume that she had been
reading and still retained in her hand. It was a small
Bible, which the woman, as she received it, raised to her
lips, and then, sinking suddenly upon her knees, pressed it
convulsively to her bosom.

“Hear me, Father of Heaven!” she exclaimed, raising
her hands as they clasped the book. “Be witness, I pray
Thee, to my sorrow and repentance for the past, as I now
promise, with thy help, never to let a drop of intoxicating
drink pass these lips of mine! O God! I pray thee to
assist me in keeping this sacred pledge!”

For an instant, there was utter silence in the room.
Even Jobson, cold and calculating as he was, seemed
momentarily impressed with the solemn intensity of the
woman's pledge—the deep contrition that was apparent
in her words and action. Then, all at once, as if it were
an effort for breath, a sobbing sound burst from the
husband's bosom, echoed by his child's cry of irrepressible
joy. But the sob was not one of sorrow—it was the glad,
overpowering expression of his thankful heart, as the
poor man sprang forward, and clasped his wife to his
heart, regardless of his hard creditor—thoughtless of

aught save her who had spoken these blessed words—he
folded in his arms a new love—a spirit disenthralled—the
bride of his youth, the redeemed mother of his child.

Mr. Jobson, real estate broker and agent, felt decidedly
de trop. He drew his portly form, bolt upright in the
chair, and glanced, with determined contempt, around.
Before him, he beheld the group of father, mother, and
child weeping in each other's arms; he glanced at the
settee, and saw that its occupant had covered his face
with his hands, and turned to the wall; he heard a step
behind, and looking, discovered the inventor's brother,
Walter, who had emerged from his little study, and, like
a crazy man as he was, was kneeling in the middle of the
floor, uplifting hands and eyes as if in thanksgiving.
Mr. Jobson rubbed his chin, grasped his gold-headed cane,
and rose abruptly, with his back to all of them.

“Stay, sir!” said a deep voice; and the broker felt
that the bright dark eyes of the stranger on the settee
were fixed upon him. “I have a something—to say—to
you.”

The words were uttered slowly, as though with difficulty.
Jobson turned his face in the direction of the
voice, but not sufficiently to interrupt the invalid's glance.

“Well!” he exclaimed, impatiently, “what do you
want.”

“You will give this gentleman—Mr. Dobbs—a receipt,
in full, for—your claim.”

“I'll do no such thing!” began Jobson; but paused
immediately, as he beheld the stranger thrust his hand
beneath the bed-clothes, and draw out a belt, which his

quick eye saw was of the description wherein money is
carried.

“My good friend,” said the invalid, “in that belt—
there is money. Let the fellow be paid!”

The order was given in a deep, though trembling voice,
as the stranger let his belt drop beside the settee, and
then sank backward on the pillow, apparently exhausted.
Walter was by his side in a moment, supporting his head,
while he applied a phial of salts to his nostrils; for the
excitement in his weakened state, had caused the invalid
to faint. Hubert, obeying the stranger's words, lifted the
money-belt, which was heavy with gold; but, as he
opened it, he heard a mild voice at his side remark—

“Oh, don't trouble yourself now, Dobbs, my dear
friend! Call down at my office, at your leisure, you
know! I won't interrupt you at this moment, Dobbs—
you must be quite happy, you know! Mrs. Dobbs, and
all of you! Good-day, Mr. Dobbs. Any time, you know;
we can settle this little matter at my office, you know.”

Saying these words, and with the most placid smile
imaginable, Mr. Jobson, the broker, dusted his pantaloons
with his handkerchief smoothed his hat, and then, with a
bow that included Mr. and Mrs. Dobbs, the little girl,
crazy Walter, and the fainting man on the settee, gracefully
backed himself out of the room, and with gold-headed
cane and patent-leather boots, speedily departed
from the premises, while the now happy family turned
their united attention to restoring to animation the generous
stranger whose gratitude had interposed for their
salvation.