89. CHAPTER LXXXIX.
DUST TO DUST.
Scarcely had Abel left the bank, after obtaining the money,
than Gabriel came in, and, upon seeing the notes which
Mr. Van Boozenberg had shown him, in order to make every
thing sure in so large a transaction, announced that they were
forged. The President was quite beside himself, and sat down
in his room, wringing his hands and crying; while the messenger
ran for a carriage, into which Gabriel stepped with Mr.
Van Boozenberg, and drove as rapidly as possible to the office
of the Chief of Police, who promised to set his men to work
at once; but the search was suddenly terminated by the bills
found upon the body of Abel Newt.
The papers were full of the dreadful news. They said they
were deeply shocked to announce that a disgrace had befallen
the whole city in the crime which had mysteriously deprived
his constituency and his country of the services of the young,
talented, promising representative, whose opening career had
seemed to be in every way so auspicious. By what foul play
he had been made way with was a matter for the strictest
legal investigation, and the honor of the country demanded
that the perpetrators of such an atrocious tragedy should be
brought to condign punishment.
The morning papers followed next day with fuller details
of the awful event. Some of the more enterprising had diagrams
of the shop, the blind, the large yellow barrels that held
the liquor pure as imported, the bench, the counter, and the
spot (marked O) where the officer had found the body. In
parlors, in banks, in groceries and liquor-shops, in lawyers'
rooms and insurance offices, the murder was the chief topic
of conversation for a day. Then came the report of the inquest.
There was no clew to the murderers. The eager, thirsty-eyed
crowd of men, and women, and children, crushing and
hanging about the shop, gradually loosened their gaze. The
jury returned that the deceased Abel Newt came to his death
by the hands of some person or persons unknown. The shop
was closed, officers were left in charge, and the body was
borne away.
General Belch was in his office reading the morning paper
when Mr. William Condor entered. They shook hands. Upon
the General's fat face there was an expression of horror and
perplexity, but Mr. Condor was perfectly calm.
“What an awful thing!” said Belch, as the other sat down
before the fire.
“Frightful,” said Mr. Condor, placidly, as he lighted a cigar,
“but not surprising.”
“Who do you suppose did it?” asked the General.
“Impossible to tell. A drunken brawl, with its natural
consequences; that's all.”
“Yes, I know; but it's awful.”
“Providential.”
“What do you mean?”
“Abel Newt would have made mince-meat of you and me
and the rest of us if he had lived. That's what I mean,” replied
Mr. Condor, unruffled, and lightly whiffing the smoke.
“But it's necessary to draw some resolutions to offer in the
committee, and I've brought them with me. You know
there's a special meeting called to take notice of this deplorable
event, and you must present them. Shall I read them?”
Mr. Condor drew a piece of paper from his pocket, and,
holding his cigar in one hand and whiffing at intervals, read:
“Whereas our late associate and friend, Abel Newt, has
been suddenly removed from this world, in the prime of his
life and the height of his usefulness, by the hand of an inscrutable
but all-wise Providence, to whose behests we desire always
to bow in humble resignation; and
“Whereas, it is eminently proper that those to whom great
public trusts have been confided by their fellow-citizens should
not pass away without some signal expression of the profound
sense of bereavement which those fellow-citizens entertain; and
“Whereas we represent that portion of the community with
whom the lamented deceased peculiarly sympathized; therefore
be it resolved by the General Committee,
“First, That this melancholy event impressively teaches the
solemn truth that in the midst of life we are in death;
“Second, That in the brilliant talents, the rare accomplishments,
the deep sagacity, the unswerving allegiance to principle
which characterized our dear departed brother and associate,
we recognize the qualities which would have rendered
the progress of his career as triumphant as its opening was
auspicious;
“Third, That while we humble ourselves before the mysterious
will of Heaven, which works not as man works, we tender
our most respectful and profound sympathy to the afflicted
relatives and friends of the deceased, to whom we fervently
pray that his memory may be as a lamp to the feet;
“Fourth, That we will attend his funeral in a body; that
we will wear crape upon the left arm for thirty days; and that
a copy of these resolutions, signed by the officers of the Committee,
shall be presented to his family.”
“I think that'll do,” said Mr. Condor, resuming his cigar,
and laying the paper upon the table.
“Just the thing,” said General Belch. “Just the thing.
You know the Grant has passed and been approved?”
“Yes, so Ele wrote me,” returned Mr. Condor.
“Condor,” continued the General, “I've had enough of it.
I'm going to back out. I'd rather sweep the streets.”
General Belch spoke emphatically, and his friend turned toward
him with a pleasant smile.
“Can you make so much in any other way?”
“Perhaps not. But I'd rather make less, and more comfortably.”
“I find it perfectly comfortable,” replied William Condor.
“You take it too hard. You ought to manage it with less
friction. The point is, to avoid friction. If you undertake to
deal with men, you ought to understand just what they are.”
Mr. Condor smoked serenely, and General Belch looked at
his slim, clean figure, and his calm face, with curious admiration.
“By-the-by,” said Condor, “when you introduce the resolutions,
I shall second them with a few remarks.”
And he did so. At the meeting of the Committee he rose
and enforced them with a few impressive and pertinent words.
“Gratitude,” he said, “is instinctive in the human breast.
When a man does well, or promises well, it is natural to regard
him with interest and affection. The fidelity of our departed
brother is worthy of our most affectionate admiration
and imitation. If you ask me whether he had faults, I answer
that he was a man. Whoso is without sin, let him cast the
first stone.”
On the same day the Honorable B. Jawley Ele rose in his
place in Congress to announce the calamity in which the
whole country shared, and to move an adjournment in respect
for the memory of his late colleague—“a man endeared to us
all by the urbanity of his deportment and his social graces;
but to me especially, by the kindness of his heart and the readiness
of his sympathy.”
Abel Newt was buried from his father's house. There were
not many gathered at the service in the small, plain rooms.
Fanny Dinks was there, sobered and saddened—the friend
now of Hope Wayne, and of Amy, her Uncle Lawrence's wife.
Alfred was there, solemnized and frightened. The office of
Lawrence Newt & Co. was closed, and the partners and the
clerks all stood together around the coffin. Abel's mother,
shrouded in black, sat in a dim corner of the room, nervously
sobbing. Abel's father, sitting in his chair, his white hair
hanging upon his shoulders, looked curiously at all the people,
while his bony fingers played upon his knees, and he said nothing.
During all the solemn course of the service, from the gracious
words, “I am the resurrection and the life,” to the final
Amen which was breathed out of the depth of many a soul
there, the old man's eyes did not turn from the elergyman.
But when, after a few moments of perfect silence, two or
three men entered quietly and rapidly, and, lifting the coffin,
began to bear it softly out of the room, he looked troubled
and surprised, and glanced vaguely and inquiringly from one
person to another, until, as it was passing out of the door, his
face was covered with a piteous look of appeal: he half-rose
from his chair, and reached out toward the door, with the
[ILLUSTRATION]
The Funeral.
[Description: 538EAF. Page 498. In-line Illustration. Image of a man and woman in a room full of people. The woman is dressed in dark clothes. The man is thin and elderly, and is just rising from a chair. His hand is outstretched and her hands are reacing towards him. ]
long white fingers clutching in the air; but Hope Wayne
took the wasted hands in hers, placed her arm behind him
gently, and tenderly pressed him back into the chair. The
old man raised his eyes to her as she stood by him, and holding
one of her hands in one of his, the spectral calmness returned
into his face; while, beating his thin knee with the
other hand, he said, in the old way, as the body of his son
was borne out of his house, “Riches have wings! Riches have
wings!” But still he held Hope Wayne's hand, and from
time to time raised his eyes to her face.
