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Up the narrow stairway of a squalid brick tenement he led the penitent offspring of the Octopus. He knocked on a door, and a clear voice called to them to enter. In that almost bare room a young woman sat sewing at a machine. She nodded to Kenwitz as to a familiar acquaintance.
"How many this week, Miss Mary?" asked the watchmaker. A mountain of coarse gray shirts lay upon the floor. "Nearly thirty dozen," said the young woman cheerfully. "I've made almost $4. I'm improving, Mr. Kenwitz. I hardly know what to do with so much money." Her eyes turned, brightly soft, in the direction of Dan. A little pink spot came out on her round, pale cheek.
"I'm obliged to you, Ken, old man," he said, vaguely "a thousand times obliged." "Mein Gott! you are crazy!" cried the watchmaker, dropping his spectacles for the first time in years. Two months afterward Kenwitz went into a large bakery on lower Broadway with a pair of gold-rimmed eyeglasses that he had mended for the proprietor. A lady was giving an order to a clerk as Kenwitz passed her.
Boyne went insane after his failure and set fire to the building from which he was about to be evicted. The loss amounted to that much. Boyne died in an asylum." "Stick to the instance," said Dan. "I haven't noticed any insurance companies on my charity list." "Draw your next check for $100,000," went on Kenwitz. "Boyne's son fell into bad ways after the bakery closed, and was accused of murder.
"Easy enough," said Dan, in a cloud of smoke. "I suppose I could give the city a park, or endow an asparagus bed in a hospital. But I don't want Paul to get away with the proceeds of the gold brick we sold Peter. It's the bread shorts I want to cover, Ken." The thin fingers of Kenwitz moved rapidly.
But we might find a few of 'em and chuck some of dad's cash back where it came from. I'd feel better if I could. It seems tough for people to be held up for a soggy thing like bread. One wouldn't mind standing a rise in broiled lobsters or deviled crabs. Get to work and think, Ken. I want to pay back all of that money I can." "There are plenty of charities," said Kenwitz, mechanically.
And then Dan went back to college, and Kenwitz to his mainsprings and to his private library in the rear of the jewelry shop. Four years later Dan came back to Washington Square with the accumulations of B. A. and two years of Europe thick upon him.
He was a millionaire-baiter by nature and a pessimist by trade. Kenwitz would assure you in one breath that money was but evil and corruption, and that your brand-new watch needed cleaning and a new ratchet-wheel. He conducted Kinsolving southward out of the square and into ragged, poverty-haunted Varick Street.
"Do you know how much money it would take to pay back the losses of consumers during that corner in flour?" he asked. "I do not." said Dan, stoutly. "My lawyer tells me that I have two millions." "If you had a hundred millions," said Kenwitz, vehemently, "you couldn't repair a thousandth part of the damage that has been done.
Dan Kinsolving struck the park bench a mighty blow with his fist. "I accept the instance," he cried. "Take me to Boyne. I will repay his thousand dollars and buy him a new bakery." "Write your check," said Kenwitz, without moving, "and then begin to write checks in payment of the train of consequences. Draw the next one for $50,000.
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