Bar Vernon was particularly anxious not to miss the doctor that next morning, if only because the precious wallet was becoming such a dreadful burden to carry.
“I wouldn’t sleep with that thing another night,” he said to himself, “not for the whole hotel,”—forgetting how very little slumbering he had really managed to do.
His anxiety, however, led him into a very judicious piece of extravagance. He could not think of either losing time or exposing himself to any perils by the way; and so he called the first good-looking “hack” carriage he saw empty after leaving the hotel, and was whirled up in front of Dr. Manning’s elegant “brown-stone front,” on one of the most fashionable up-town streets, in something like proper style.
For all that, however, the dignified servant who answered Bar’s pull at the door-bell looked[Pg 66] down a little loftily on so very young and healthy-looking a “patient.”
“Dr. Manning does not wish to see any one this morning——”
“Never mind that,” interrupted Bar. “He is waiting for me. Just give him my name.”
“Card, sir?”
“No card,” said Bar. “Just tell him my name is Wallet, that’s all.”
The thoroughly mystified porter politely showed Bar into the doctor’s reception-room and stalked away to the library with his message.
“Wallet? Wallet?” muttered the doctor, when he received it. “I don’t know any such man. Did he say what was the matter with him?”
“Said as how you were waitin’ for him, sir.”
“Waiting for him? Wallet? Ah, yes, I see. How I wish Judge Danvers were here! John, go over for the judge at once. Tell him I want to see him immediately. Show Mr. Wallet in.”
“In here, sir?”
“Yes, right away. Say to the judge it’s very important.”
Dr. Manning, on advice of his counsel, had[Pg 67] kept his loss of the night before, a secret from everybody but his wife, and the dignified porter had not the slightest idea of the tremendous meaning which might be lurking under the very simple name of the “cheeky” visitor.
Whatever may have been the sort of human being which the doctor had pictured to himself as likely to come on such an errand, he was manifestly astonished when our hero was ushered into the library.
“John” would have given something to have “fussed around” and learned a little more, but his master peremptorily hurried him off.
He had asked Bar to be seated, almost mechanically, but, as the door closed on John, he turned to him again with,
“Mr. Wallet?”
“There I am,” said Bar, “all of me you care for, lying on the table.”
There it was, sure enough, in all the glory of its Russia leather, and the good doctor drew a long sigh of relief as he picked it up.
“Where could I have lost it?” he said to himself, aloud. “The judge is clearly wrong about it. May I ask where you found it, Mr.——”
[Pg 68]“Vernon,” said Bar. “The visitor you were waiting for was named Wallet. I’m only Barnaby Vernon. Please count your money, Doctor, and see that all the papers are there.”
“Of course,” exclaimed the good doctor, “I’ve no doubt of that, my young friend; there is that in your face which assures me.”
“No, Doctor,” said Bar, “that pocketbook kept me awake all night, for fear you might miss something when you opened it. Please count it over; I shan’t be easy till you do.”
The boy’s face assumed a wonderfully earnest expression as he spoke, and the doctor looked at his fresh, yet strongly-marked young face most benevolently, as he replied:
“I think the judge would say you are right. No man should let money go out of his hand without a receipt, he says.”
“That’s what I’m waiting for,” said Bar.
“Ah, yes, I remember,” said the doctor, as he drew the strap and began to turn over the contents of the wallet; “a receipt and something else.”
Bar was silent, but Dr. Manning had now recovered his hitherto somewhat disturbed equilibrium,[Pg 69] and he was now examining his recovered treasure as carefully as if he were noting the symptoms of a difficult “case,” and that is saying a good deal.
“All there,” he said, at last. “Every paper. Every cent. Not a thing missing.”
“Please make me out a receipt in full, then,” said Barnaby.
“Receipt!” exclaimed the doctor, as he took up a pen and a scrap of paper. “Certainly. One of those thousand dollar bills is yours, too. There it is. But I wish you would tell me now where you found it.”
“No, thank you,” said Bar. “I don’t wish any reward. Find it? Oh, no, Doctor, I stole it for you.”
“Stole it?”
Just then there came a violent ring at the door-bell, and Dr. Manning exclaimed:
“That’s the judge, now. I’m ever so glad he’s come.”
In a moment more the keen, penetrating eyes of the old lawyer were busily reading, with practiced skill, every line and shade on the face of Barnaby Vernon.
[Pg 70]“The money and papers are all right,” remarked the doctor, “but our young friend refuses to take any reward or to tell me how he came by the wallet. He says he stole it.”
“Stole it!” almost shouted the judge. “Stole it from the man who found it, I suppose?”
“That’s it,” said Bar. “One man found it in Dr. Manning’s pocket. He gave it away to another man, at once, and he to another, and he to another way back in the crowd. I stole it from that man—or rather, for I was honest about it, I traded him another wallet for it.”
“You’re a deep one,” exclaimed the judge. “I think I’d better have you arrested.”
“Go ahead,” said Bar, quietly.
“Arrest him!” exclaimed the doctor. “What for, I’d like to know?”
“For bringing back your pocketbook,” said Bar.
“Well, well, young man,” said the lawyer, half apologetically, “I don’t mean that, exactly. But it’s all very strange. Don’t you think you deserve any reward?”
“Certainly,” said Bar; “it’s cost me a deal of trouble and worry, besides my carriage-hire this morning.”
[Pg 71]“Why won’t you take it, then?” asked the puzzled doctor.
“I was going to ask something better than an arrest,” said Bar.
“Come, come,” said the judge, “I’ll take that all back. I never was so interested in anything in all my life. What is it you want?”
“Nothing,” said Bar, “except a little advice, and so I brought my fee with me.”
“Advice!” exclaimed the doctor. “Why, you look about the stoutest, healthiest fellow of your age I’ve seen in a month.”
“So I am,” said Bar, “but I want advice, nevertheless. You see, I’ve heard that you doctors are the only men living that can keep a secret, and I can’t get the advice I want without telling mine. So as soon as the judge is gone I’ll tell it.”
“That’s a little the coolest!” growled the old lawyer. “Why, young man, doctors are no more professional secret-keepers than we are.”
“But the doctor owes me a fee, a big one, and you don’t,” said Bar.
“Never mind,” said the doctor, “we’ll take the judge in as counsel. I’ll pay his fee if he asks for one.”
[Pg 72]“The boy’s fee enough,” exclaimed the judge. “Never saw anything like him. Don’t let him send me away, Doctor. Look here, young man, it may be you want a lawyer more’n you do a doctor.”
“Very likely,” said Bar, “and I s’pose a fellow’s own counsel is bound to side with him? Have you time now, or shall I call again?”
“Call again?” shouted the judge. “Do you want me to burst? Out with it, now? How did you come by that wallet?”
Barnaby’s mind had been at work all night on what he meant to say that morning, and it never occurred to him as strange that those two elderly men should get so excited with curiosity as they now clearly were. He had struggled so long with the important question “what should he do with himself,” that he felt he must ask somebody, and surely two such men as these ought to be able to tell him. His next words were, therefore:
“Well, then, if you’ll keep my secret for me, I’ll begin at the beginning—it isn’t long.”
Not long. Only the outline story of such a life as he remembered, with Major Montague and[Pg 73] old Prosper, in every part of the country, and in all sorts of curious and often doubtful undertakings.
Then his own growing conviction that he had been born for something better, his final rebellion and his setting out for himself.
“But that black valise!” exclaimed the judge. “What did you find in that? You say you remember some sort of home and family when you were very young. Did you find anything about it?”
“I haven’t opened it yet,” said Bar. “You know, I said to you, I promised Major Montague I wouldn’t open it for a year and a day. I must keep my word, even if he was ever so drunk when I gave it to him. If he’d been sober I’d never have known anything about it.”
“Keep your word! What do you think of that, Doctor?”
“Think?” exclaimed the doctor, brushing his benevolent old eyes with his hand.
“You see, too,” continued Bar, “it was that gang found your wallet in your pocket, and I stole it from Prosper in the crowd.”
A few words more explained Bar’s operations[Pg 74] more fully, but he absolutely refused to have anything to do with the “prosecution” the judge began to talk of.
“He’s right,” said the doctor. “He’d have to give testimony that would harm him wrongfully——”
“I see,” began the judge; “but——”
Bar interrupted him with:
“And now, gentlemen, the whole of it is just this. I’ve got a new name, I want a new life, and you must advise me how to get into it. That’ll be worth more to me than any one thousand dollars’ reward.”
“But to think of such a boy seeing it in that light,” exclaimed the judge.
“Judge,” said the Doctor, “you seem to be all at sea. This looks like a case for me to treat. In a year from now he can open his valise, for I think he must keep his promise to his rascally uncle, and then we can’t guess what he may learn. Meantime he must go to school.”
“School!” exclaimed Bar. “How am I to manage that? My money’s half-gone already. I must find a way of earning some more.”
[Pg 75]“I’ll take care of that,” began the judge, with sudden energy; but the doctor interposed:
“It’s all right, Judge. My boy goes back to Ogleport Academy in a couple of weeks or so, and our young friend must go with him. He must let me pay at least a year’s schooling on account of the thousand dollars’ reward. He’s saved me ten thousand, to say the least. A good deal more, I’m afraid. It’ll be just the place for him, and his old scoundrel of an uncle will never think of hunting for him there.”
“That’s it,” shouted the judge; “only you must count me in, somewhere. My young friend, maybe my turn’ll come when that valise is opened. It may be chock full of law business, for all you know. Hullo, the boy’s crying!”
It was a fact, though it did not long continue so. Poor Bar’s anxieties and excitements, with the task of detailing his sufferings and adventures, crowned as all had been by such a wonderful result, had been too much for him. With all his hardly acquired keenness and self-possession, Bar Vernon was only a boy, after all, and he was altogether unused to such treatment as he was now receiving. Besides, the idea of[Pg 76] going to school, of all things, and in the country, and in decent company, such as he longed for—it was too much indeed, and Bar had covered his face with his hands.
“That’s all right,” said the doctor; “but now, Judge, I must see all this stuff safely deposited in bank, this time; I shan’t be easy till I’ve done that.”
“And I won’t leave you till you do,” said the Judge. “But how about Barnaby?”
“The carriage I came in is still at the door,” said Bar, looking up; “you might ride down in that and leave me at the hotel.”
“The very thing,” said the doctor. “And then I can call for you on my way back, and bring you right up here. No more hotel for you, my boy.”
Bar felt very much like going on with his cry, but the two old gentlemen were in a hurry, and in a few moments more the dignified porter almost broke his neck looking after the carriage as it carried off that trio. It was barely an hour later that the clerk of the hotel, after bowing most respectfully to the great physician, was electrified by his inquiring for Mr. Vernon.
[Pg 77]“Didn’t know he was sick.”
“Sick? No, indeed,” replied the doctor. “He’s coming up to visit with my boy for awhile. Send up for him, please.”
“Youngster’s all right, after all,” muttered the clerk to himself, “but that villainous looking Major Montague was here for him again this morning. Anyhow, he’s in good hands now. Wonder who his father is?”
That was just the puzzle that was troubling the mind of our hero, and the doctor, and even the busy old judge himself, all the rest of that long, hot August day, and the little black valise never said or hinted a single word to relieve them.