Short Fiction

ownership of the notes. Who was Humphery Anderson? Where had he come from? Where was he going? To whom had he wished this money to be given? These questions, and dozens of others which trod on their heels, Rufus Sisseton put ceaselessly and unavailingly to himself. The pockets of the man who had died before his eyes had been searched; there was a coarse handkerchief, two cigars, a handful of silver, a roll of small bills, a ticket to Boston, but not a clue to the identity of the deceased. His name, presumably, was Humphery Anderson, and that name Rufus Sisseton had given to the coroner and seen it chronicled in the list of the dead; but when a week went by, and no one claimed the body, the old clerk became uneasy. He put an advertisement in the Herald; there was no reply. He inserted another; the result was the same. It was then he resigned his position and moved to Tompkins Square.

Meanwhile he lived in a state of terror bordering on lunacy; death in the most terrible form had approached so close, the escape had been so narrow, that his nerves, never too strong at their best, had become unstrung. This his employers noticed, and were glad to have him go. But the thing which frightened him most, and of which no one save himself was aware, was the fear of being robbed. Behind every door he divined a possible thief; on every passer he scented a footpad; for as yet, in his uncertainty, he kept the pocketbook by him, sleeping on it at night, clutching it convulsively by day. But in Tompkins Square he felt easier; the idea of removing a plank occurred to him, and beneath his bed, in an oilskin wrapper, he placed the pocketbook. Another would have simplified everything by depositing the money in a bank, but Rufus Sisseton had grown timorous⁠—banks had been known to fail. Therewith was the haunting memory of that agonized face and the words of the dying⁠—“Give this, yourself.”

That “yourself” which the moribund had uttered the old clerk construed as constituting a sacred trust, and, to observe it as best he might, the advertisements continued. As time passed, and no reply came, his timorousness, instead of declining, increased. The eighty-seven thousand dollars submerged his faculties, he became the prey of fancies which banished both appetite and sleep; he kept to his room as much as possible, and finally so arranged that nothing could disturb his voluntary captivity. Nothing, indeed, except Jenny, who fluttered to him every year for awhile, and then took wing to the Massachusettsian school. When she had gone, he locked the door again and waited the coming of the Anderson heirs.

In this fashion seven years limped by, and Jenny, having received all the education which the school was competent to provide, returned definitely to her father. And it was as well, perhaps, that she did; for the latter, in his self-imposed seclusion, was becoming what Lombroso has recently christened a “mattoid”⁠—a crank on the road to an asylum. Such signs of aberration as he was beginning to manifest the girl’s blithesomeness and beauty banished. She filled the little apartment with laughter, with song, sunshine and life; her winsomeness and beguiling ways awoke and entranced the old man, and in considering her future and its possibilities, the hour came in which he caught himself thinking of the advantages which would accrue if no heir of Humphery Anderson should appear.

That idea once in his head, declined to be dislodged. It was only an hypothesis, it is true; but an hypothesis that became a hope, and in that hope, little by little, the form of his timidity altered; he ceased to fear that the heir might not appear; he began to fear that he would; and abruptly the advertisements ceased.

At the expiration of nine years the old clerk commenced to regard the money as his own. There were little surprises that he planned⁠—the purchase of a country home, trips with Jenny abroad. But the very first time that he counted the banknotes with the idea of appropriating a portion of them, they fell from his hand; he trembled from head to foot, and mentally he denounced himself as a thief. It may be that that same scrupulousness would forever have inhibited him from touching a penny of that trust, had he not discovered that Jenny was head over heels in love with a young artist to whom she had not addressed a single word. The discovery put an end to his hesitations. He made inquiries concerning Hugh, of which the result has been already conveyed; and, half in sorrow, half in joy, determined to give him Jenny, and the money, too.

It was these things that returned to him when the little man exclaimed:

“Well, sir, what am I to learn to my advantage?”

As he spoke, his eyes had the glitter of gems, and he tugged at his beard ferociously.

“I am Humphery Anderson’s next of kin, and in advertising for me I suppose it is because you had property of his in your possession.”

Mr. Sisseton hesitated. He thought of Jenny, of the happiness he had promised and of what must now ensue; but, to save the nation, he could not help being honest.

“Yes, sir,” he answered, dejectedly.

“Ha! ha!” laughed the little man. “I thought so. Well, fire ahead, I’m listening.”

“It is for you to go on, I think. What relation are you to Humphery Anderson?”

At this question the little man turned the color of brick; for a second he lowered his eyes, but immediately he recovered his customary aplomb.

“Thundering guns! why, I am his brother, his last surviving relative!”

“How is it, then, that for ten years you have given no sign of existence?”

“For the best reason in the world⁠—I have not been here. I have been in Mongolia, in Africa, in Peru; anywhere and everywhere except in the States. It is only six weeks ago that I landed. Even then