Blinded by such fascinations it is not at all astonishing that long before Oliver regained his senses the Colonel had left the house for the day. That distinguished gentleman would, no doubt, have waited the young prince's pleasure in his library had he known of his errand. But since the Colonel had unfortunately taken himself off, there was nothing, of course, for our Oliver to do but to remain where he was until noon--this was Sue's way out of the difficulty --and then to catch the Colonel at the bank where he could always be found between twelve and one o'clock, or where Mr. Stiger, the cashier, could lay his hands on him if he was anywhere in the neighborhood, a suggestion of Sue's which at once relieved Oliver from further anxiety, Mr. Stiger being one of his oldest and dearest friends.
By the time, however, that Oliver had reached the bank the Colonel had left for the club, where he would have been too happy, no doubt--being the most courteous of colonels, etc., etc.--"if his dear young friend had only sent him word," etc.
All this our breathless young Mercury--Oliver never walked when he could run--learned some hours later from old Mr. Stiger, the cashier, who punched him in the ribs at the end of every sentence in which he conveyed the disappointing information, calling him "Creeps," at short intervals, and roaring with laughter at the boy's account of the causes leading up to his missing the Colonel.
"Gone to the club, Creeps, don't I tell you (--punch in the ribs--); gone to get a little sip of Madeira and a little bit of woodcock (--punch over the heart--), and a little--oh, I tell you, you young dog--" (this punch straight on the breast-bone)--"you ought to be a bank director--you hear!--a big fat bank director, and own a big house up in the Square, if you want to enjoy yourself--and have a pretty daughter--Oh, you young rascal!" This last punch bent Oliver double, and was followed by an outburst of uncontrollable laughter from Stiger.
These same punchings and outbursts had gone on since the days that Oliver was in short trousers and Stiger was superintendent of the Sunday-school which the boy had attended in his early years--Stiger was still superintendent and of the same school: cashiers had to have certificates of character in those days.
A smooth-shaven, round-headed old fellow was Stiger, with two little dabs of side-whiskers, a pair of eyes that twinkled behind a pair of gold spectacles, and a bald head kept polished by the constant mopping of a red silk handkerchief. His costume in the bank was a black alpaca coat and high black satin stock, which grabbed him tight around the neck, and held in place the two points of his white collar struggling to be free. Across his waist-line was a square of cloth. This, in summer, replaced his waistcoat, and, in winter, protected it from being rubbed into holes by constant contact with the edge of the counter.
His intimacy with Oliver dated from one hot Sunday morning years before, when Oliver had broken in upon the old gentleman's long prayers by sundry scrapings of his finger-nails down the whitewashed wall of the school-room, producing a blood-cooling and most irreverent sound, much to the discomfort of the worshippers.
"Who made that noise?" asked Mr. Stiger, when the amen was reached.
"Me, sir."
"What for?"
"To get cool. It makes creeps go down my back."
From that day the old cashier had never called Oliver anything but "Creeps."
Oliver, in a spirit of playful revenge, made caricatures of his prosecutor in these later years, enlarging his nose, puffing out his cheeks, and dressing him up in impossible clothes. These sketches he would mail to the cashier as anonymous communications, always stopping at the bank the next day to see how Stiger enjoyed them. He generally found them tacked up over the cashier's desk. Some of them were still there when Stiger died.
Carried away by the warm greetings of the old cashier, and the hearty, whole-souled spirit of companionship inherent in the man--a spirit always dear to Oliver--he not only stayed to make another caricature of the old fellow, over which the original laughed until the tears ran down his fat cheeks, but until all the old sketches were once more taken from the drawer or examined on the wall and laughed at over again, Stiger praising him for his cleverness and predicting all kinds of honors and distinctions for him when his talents become recognized. It was just the atmosphere of general approval in which our young hero loved to bask, and again the hours slipped away and three o'clock came and went and his mother's message was still undelivered. Nor had he been at Judge Ellicott's office. This fact was not impressed upon him by the moon-faced clock that hung over the cashier's desk--time made no difference to Oliver--but by the cashier himself, who began stuffing the big books into a great safe built into the wall, preparatory to locking it with a key that could have opened the gate of a walled town, and which the old gentleman took home with him every night and hung on a nail by his bed.
Thus it came to pass that another half hour had struck before Oliver mounted the steps of the Chesapeake Club in search of the elusive Colonel.
The fat, mahogany-colored porter, who sat all day in the doorway of the club, dozing in his lobster-shell bath-chair, answered his next inquiry. This ancient relic; who always boasted that no gentleman member of the club, dead or alive, could pass him without being recognized, listened to Oliver's request with a certain lifeless air--a manner always shown to strangers--and shuffled away to the reading-room to find the Colonel.
