Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York | Page 6

and in a voice quivering with rage he
demanded to know what the Chinaman had done that for. A large
crowd immediately assembled and lent its interest to the solution of this
question. It was in vain that the Chinaman protested innocence of any
aggressive act or thought. The crowd's sympathies were with Bootsey,
and when he insisted that the Mongol had tangled him up in his pig-tail,
the aroused populace with great difficulty restrained its desire to
demolish the amazed heathens. At last, however, they were permitted to
go, followed by a rabble of urchins, and Bootsey proceeded on his way
to the office.
[Illustration: HE GRABBED THE CUE OF ONE OF THEM.]
Many other interruptions retarded his progress. He had not gone far
before he was invited into a game of ball, and this, of course, could not
be neglected. The game ending in a general conflict of the players,
caused by Bootsey's falling on top of another boy, whom he utterly
refused to let up unless it should be admitted that the flattened
unfortunate was "out," he issued from the turmoil in time to join in an
attack upon a peanut roaster and to avail himself largely of the spoils.
Enriched with peanuts, he had got as far as the City Hall Park when a
drunken man attracted his attention, and he assisted actively in an effort
to convince the drunken man that the Mayor's office was the ferry to
Weehawken. It was while engaged in giving these disinterested
assurances that he felt himself lifted off his feet by a steady pull at his
ears, and looking up he beheld Mr. Jayres.
"You unmitigated little rascal!" cried Mr. Jayres, "where've you been?"
"Nowhere," said Bootsey, in an injured tone.

"Didn't I tell you to get back promptly?"
"Aint I a-getting' back?"
"Aint you a-get--whew!" roared Mr. Jayres, with the utmost
exasperation, "how I'd like to tan your plaguey little carcass till it was
black and blue! Come on, now," and Mr. Jayres strode angrily ahead.
Bootsey followed. He offered no reply to this savage expression, but
from his safe position in the rear he grinned amiably.
Mr. Jayres was large and dark and dirty. His big fat face, shaped like a
dumpling, wore a hard and ugly expression. Small black eyes sat under
his low, expansive forehead. His cheeks and chin were supposed to be
shaven, and perhaps that experience may occasionally have befallen
them. His costume was antique. Around his thick neck he wore a soiled
choker. His waistcoat was low, and from it protruded the front of a
fluted shirt. A dark-blue swallow-tail coat with big buttons and a high
collar wrapped his huge body, and over his shoulders hung a heavy
mass of black hair, upon which his advanced age had made but a slight
impression.
[Illustration: "WE'VE CALLED," SAID THE MAN, SLOWLY.]
His office was upon the top floor of a building in Murray Street. It was
a long, low room. Upon its door was fastened a battered tin sign
showing the words: "Absalom Jayres, Counsellor." The walls and
ceiling were covered with dusty cobwebs. In one end of the room stood
an old wood stove, and near it was a pile of hickory sticks. A set of
shelves occupied a large portion of the wall, bearing many volumes,
worn, dusty, and eaten with age.
Among them were books of the English peerage, records of titled
families, reports of the Court of Chancery in hundreds of testamentary
cases, scrap-books full of newspaper clippings concerning American
claimants to British fortunes, lists of family estates in Great Britain and
Ireland, and many other works bearing upon heraldry, the laws of
inheritance, and similar subjects.

Upon the walls hung charts showing the genealogical trees of
illustrious families, tracing the descent of Washington, of Queen
Victoria, and of other important personages. There was no covering on
the floor except that which had accumulated by reason of the absence
of broom and mop. A couple of tables, a few dilapidated chairs, a
pitcher and a basin, were about all the furniture that the room
contained.
Being elderly and huge, it required far more time for Mr. Jayres to
make the ascent to his office than for Bootsey. Having this fact in mind,
Bootsey sat down upon the first step of the first flight, intending to wait
until Mr. Jayres had at least reached the final flight before he started up
at all. He failed to communicate his resolution, however, and when Mr.
Jayres turned about upon the third floor, hearing no footsteps behind
him, he stopped. He frowned. He clinched his fist and swore.
"There'll be murder on me," he said, "I know there will, if that Boy
don't do better! Now, where the pestering dickens can he be?"
Mr.