CHAPTER VIII.
A SCENE IN MRS. MACK'S ROOM.
FIFTEEN minutes before a stout, ill-dressed man of perhaps forty yearsof age knocked at the door of Mrs. Mack's room.
"Come in!" called the old lady in quavering accents.
The visitor opened the door and entered.
"Who are you?" asked the old lady in alarm.
"Don't you know me, Aunt Jane?" replied the intruder. "I'm Jack Minton,your nephew."
"I don't want to see you--go away!" cried Mrs. Mack.
"That's a pretty way to receive your own sister's son, whom you haven'tseen for five years."
"I haven't seen you because you've been in jail," retorted his aunt in ashrill voice.
"Yes, I was took for another man," said Jack. "He stole and laid it offon to me."
"I don't care how it was, but I don't want to see you. Go away!"
"Look here, Aunt Jane, you're treating me awful mean. I'm your ownorphan nephew, and you ought to make much of me."
"An orphan--yes. You hurried your poor mother to the grave by your badconduct," said Mrs. Mack with some emotion. "You won't find me so softas she was."
"Soft? No, you're as hard as flint, but all the same you're my aunt, andyou're rich, while I haven't a dollar to bless myself with."
"Rich! Me rich!" repeated the old lady shrilly. "You see how I live.Does it look as if I was rich?"
"Oh, you can't humbug me that way. You could live better if you wantedto."
"I'm poor--miserably poor!" returned the old woman.
"I'd like to be as poor as you are!" said Jack Minton grimly. "You're amiser, that's all there is about it. You half starve yourself and livewithout fire, when you might be comfortable, and all to save money.You're a fool! Do you know where all your money will go when you'redead?"
"There won't be any left."
"Won't there? I'll take the risk of that, for I shall be your heir.It'll all go to me!" said Jack, chuckling.
"Go away! Go away!" cried the terrified old woman wildly.
"I want to have a little talk with you first, aunt," said Jack, drawingthe only other chair in the room in front of Mrs. Mack and sitting downon it. "You're my only relation, and we ought to have an understanding.Why, you can't live more than a year or two--at your age."
"What do you mean?" said Mrs Mack angrily. "I'm good for ten years. I'monly seventy-seven."
"You're living on borrowed time, Aunt Jane, you know that yourself.You've lived seven years beyond the regular term, and you can't livemuch longer."
"Go away! Go away!" said the terrified old woman, really alarmed at hernephew's prediction. "I don't want to have anything to do with you."
"Don't forget that I'm your heir."
"I can leave my money as I please--not that I've got much to leave."
"You mean you'll make a will? Well, go ahead and do it. There was a manI know made a will and he died the next day."
This shot struck home, for the old woman really had a superstitiousdread of making a will.
"You're a terrible man!" she moaned. "You scare me."
"Come, aunt, be reasonable. You can leave part of your money away fromme if you like, but I want you to help me now. I'm hard up. Do you seethis nickel?" and he drew one from his vest pocket.
"Yes."
"Well, it's all the money I've got. Why, I haven't eaten anythingto-day, and I have no money to pay for a bed."
"I--I haven't any supper for you."
"I don't want any _here_. I wouldn't care to board with you, Aunt Jane.Why, I should soon become a bag of bones like yourself. I don't believeyou've got five cents' worth of provisions in the room."
"There's half a loaf of bread in the closet."
"Let me take a look at it."
He strode to the closet and opened the door. On a shelf he saw half aloaf of bread, dry and stale. He took it in his hand, laughing.
"Why, that bread is three days' old," he said. "Where's your butter?"
"I--I don't eat butter. It's too high!"
"And you don't care to live high!" said Jack, laughing at his own joke."I don't care to rob you of this bread, Aunt Jane. It's too rich for myblood. Don't you ever eat anything else?"
"Sometimes," she answered, hesitating.
"I'd rather take my supper at the cheapest restaurant on the Bowery.What I want is money."
Mrs. Mack uttered a little cry of alarm.
"Oh, don't go into a fit, aunt! I only want a little, just to get alongtill I can find work. Give me twenty-five dollars, and I won't come nearyou again for a month. I swear it."
"Twenty-five dollars!" ejaculated Mrs. Mack in dismay. "Do you think Iam made of money?"
"I don't take you for an Astor or a Vanderbilt, Aunt Jane, but you'vegot a tidy lot of money somewhere--that I am sure of. I shouldn'twonder if you had five thousand dollars. Now where do you keep it?"
"Have you taken leave of your senses?" asked the old woman sharply. "No,I haven't, but it looks to me as if you had. But I can't waste my timehere all night. I'm your only relative, and it's your duty to help me.Will you let me have twenty-five dollars or not?"
"No, I won't," answered Mrs. Mack angrily.
"Then I'll take the liberty of helping myself if I can find where youkeep your hoards."
Jack Minton jumped up from his chair and went at once to a cheap bureau,which, however, was probably the most valuable article in the room, andpulling out the top drawer, began to rummage about among the contents.Then it was that Mrs. Mack uttered the piercing shriek referred to atthe end of the last chapter, and her nephew, tramping across the floor,seized her roughly by the shoulder.
"What do you mean by this noise, you old fool?" he demanded roughly.
"Help! Murder! Thieves!" screamed the old woman.
Then the door opened, and Mark Mason burst into the room, followed byTom Trotter.
"What's the matter, Mrs. Mack?" asked Mark.
"This man is going to rob me," answered the old woman. "Oh, save me!"
"It's a lie!" said Jack Minton. "Just ask this woman who I am. Sheknows."
"Who is he, Mrs. Mack?"
"It is my nephew, Jack Minton. He----"
"Do you hear that? I'm her nephew, come in to make her a call after along time."
"What are you doing to her?" demanded Mark suspiciously.
"Trying to stop her infernal racket. You'd think I was murdering her bythe way she goes on."
"What made you scream, Mrs. Mack?"
"Because he--he was going to rob me."
"How is that?" demanded Mark sternly.
"None of your business, kid! You ain't no call to interfere between meand my aunt."
"I have if she asks me to."
"He was at my bureau drawers. He told me I must give him twenty-fivedollars."
"Supposing I did? It's the least you can do for your own nephew thathasn't a cent to bless himself with."
"Oh, take him away, Mark! He'll rob me first and murder me afterwards,and I'm his mother's only sister."
"You see she admits it. She's rolling in money----"
"Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Mack, throwing up her hands. "You know I'm poor,Mark Mason."
"No, I don't, Mrs. Mack. I think you've got all the money you need, butyou have a right to keep it if you want to. Mr. Minton, you had betterleave the room. Your aunt is evidently afraid of you, and, old as sheis, your staying here may make her sick."
"It ain't much use living, the way she is. Aunt Jane, I ask you againwill you lend me twenty-five dollars?"
"No, no!"
"Will you lend me five dollars?"
"No."
"Are you going to turn your own nephew out into the street without acent to buy food or pay for a bed?"
He glowered at his aunt so fiercely as he said this that Mark was afraidhe might strangle her.
"Mrs. Mack," he said, "you had better give him something if he is in somuch need. Since he is really your nephew, you might give him a dollaron condition that he won't
trouble you again."
After long persuasion the old woman was induced to do this, though shedeclared that it would leave her destitute, and send her to thepoor-house.
"Now, Mr. Minton," said Mark, "I advise you not to come here again, or Imay have to call in a policeman."
"I've a great mind to throw you down-stairs," growled Jack.
"You'd have to throw me too!" put in Tom Trotter.
"I'd do it with pleasure."
Jack left the room and steered his way to the nearest saloon, while Markand Tom returned to the room beneath.