“Please, sir, there’s a poor man wants to see you, Mr. Simpson.”
“Never saw him before, sir. He looks like a tramp.”
“He told me to say that he used to know you in California.”
Directly afterward Darius Darke entered the room and coolly seated himself in an arm-chair.
“It appears to me that you are very ready to make yourself at home in a gentleman’s house,” said John Simpson, angrily.
“Why shouldn’t I? I was once a gentleman myself.”
“It must have been long ago,” said the rich man with a sneer.
“Oh, you judge by my clothes,” said the tramp, coolly. “That’s wrong. Such as you see me I am a man of education, and a college graduate.”
“I don’t care what you have been. You are down in the world now.”
“What did you mean by sending me word that you knew me in California?”
“At Rocky Gulch. You were associated with a man named Thatcher. By the way is he living now?”
“Eight years. He never came home from California.”
“Very probable. But you must excuse my speaking on this subject. It is painful to me.”
“I don’t wonder at it,” said Darius Darke, in a tone which was pointed and significant.
“Of course,” he explained, “it is painful to think of the sad fate of a man with whom I was so intimate.”
Darius Darke moved his chair nearer that on which the rich man was seated and asked, abruptly:
“John Simpson, what became of Thatcher’s money?”
“How should I know?” answered the shoe manufacturer nervously. “I suppose the men who stole it have spent it long ago. Why do you come to me with such a question?”
“I supposed you would be as likely to know as any one.”
“Then, sir, you are very much mistaken. I don’t understand what business it is of yours. I should judge that your own affairs required all your attention.”
“So they do,” said Darius Darke, imperturbably. “I am coming to them by and by. But it occurred to me that poor Thatcher’s family needed the money he had when I knew him at Rocky Gulch.”
“I was speaking to his boy this evening. A fine, manly fellow Tom Thatcher is. He’ll make a smart man if he lives.”
“You were speaking to Tom Thatcher this evening?” gasped John Simpson, unpleasantly surprised. “At what time this evening?”
“No; I asked him the way to your house, and he told me he had just left it.”