The Orange-Yellow Diamond | Page 5

which the place was divided, he asked the waitress for the food and drink which he was now positively aching for. And he had eaten a plateful of fish and two boiled eggs and several thick slices of bread and butter, and drunk the entire contents of a pot of tea before he even lifted his eyes to look round him. But by that time he was conscious of satisfaction, and he sat up and inspected the place to which he had hurried so eagerly. And in the same moment he once more saw Melky.
Melky had evidently just entered the little eating-house. Evidently, too, he was in no hurry for food or drink. He had paused, just within the entrance, at a desk which stood there, whereat sat Mrs. Goldmark, the proprietress, a plump, pretty young woman, whose dark, flashing eyes turned alternately from watching her waitresses to smiling on her customers as they came to the desk to pay their bills. Melky, his smart billy-cock hat cocked to one side, his sporting-looking overcoat adorned with a flower, was evidently paying compliments to Mrs. Goldmark as he leaned over her desk: she gave him a playful push and called to a waitress to order Mr. Rubinstein a nice steak. And Melky, turning from her with a well satisfied smile, caught sight of Lauriston, and sauntered down to the table at which he sat.
"Get your bit of business done all right?" he asked, confidentially, as he took a seat opposite his fellow-lodger and bent towards him. "Find the old gent accommodating?"
"I didn't see him," answered Lauriston. "I saw a young lady."
"My cousin Zillah," said Melky. "Smart girl, that, mister--worth a pile o' money to the old man--she knows as much about the business as what he does! You wouldn't think, mister," he went on in his soft, lisping tones, "but that girl's had a college education--fact! Old Daniel, he took her to live with him when her father and mother died, she being a little 'un then, and he give her--ah, such an education as I wish I'd had--see? She's quite the lady--is Zillah--but sticks to the old shop--not half, neither!"
"She seems very business-like," remarked Lauriston, secretly pleased that he had now learned the pretty pawnbroker's name. "She soon did what I wanted." "In the blood," said Melky, laconically. "We're all of us in that sort o' business, one way or another. Now, between you and me, mister, what did she lend you on that bit o' stuff?"
"Three pounds fifteen," replied Lauriston.
"That's about it," assented Melky, with a nod. He leaned a little nearer. "You don't want to sell the ticket?" he suggested. "Give you a couple o' quid for it, if you do."
"You seem very anxious to buy that watch," said Lauriston, laughing. "No-- I don't want to sell the ticket--not I! I wouldn't part with that watch for worlds."
"Well, if you don't, you don't," remarked Melky. "And as to wanting to buy--that's my trade. I ain't no reg'lar business--I buy and sell, anything that comes handy, in the gold and silver line. And as you ain't going to part with that ticker on no consideration, I'll tell you what it's worth, old as it is. Fifteen quid!"
"That's worth knowing, any way," said Lauriston. "I shall always have something by me then, while I have that. You'd have made a profit of a nice bit, then, if I'd sold it to you?"
"It 'ud be a poor world, mister, if you didn't get no profit, wouldn't it?" assented Melky calmly. "We're all of us out to make profit. Look here!--between you and me--you're a lit'ry gent, ain't you? Write a bit, what? Do you want to earn a fiver--comfortable?"
"I should be very glad," replied Lauriston.
"There's a friend o' mine," continued Melky, "wholesale jeweller, down Shoreditch way, wants to get out a catalogue. He ain't no lit'ry powers, d'you see? Now, he'd run to a fiver--cash down--if some writing feller 'ud touch things up a bit for him, like. Lor' bless you!--it wouldn't take you more'n a day's work! What d'ye say to it?"
"I wouldn't mind earning five pounds at that," answered Lauriston.
"Right-oh!" said Melky. "Then some day next week, I'll take you down to see him--he's away till then. And--you'll pay me ten per cent, on the bit o' business, won't you, mister? Business is business, ain't it?"
"All right!" agreed Lauriston. "That's a bargain, of course."
Melky nodded and turned to his steak, and Lauriston presently left him and went away. The plump lady at the desk gave him a smile as she handed him his change.
"Hope to see you again, sir," she said.
Lauriston went back to his room, feeling that the world had changed. He had paid his landlady, he had silver and copper in his pocket, he had the chance