Chester Rand; or, The New Path to Fortune, Jr. Horatio Alger [good books for high schoolers .txt] 📗

Street! Ahem, rather far uptown. What’s the figure?”

“Five thousand dollars.”

“I’ll take a look at them as soon as I have time. You see, Mr. Perkins, I do all my real estate business through my friend, Mr. Mullins.”

“Just so.”

Neither Mr. Perkins nor Chester was taken in by Ralston’s assumption of the character of a capitalist. The Western man had already a shrewd suspicion of the gambler’s real business, and being a cautious and prudent man, did not care to cultivate him.

“Good-morning!” said Mr. Perkins. “I must not take up any more of your time. Will you allow Chester to go out with me for five minutes?”

“Certainly.”

David Mullins would have liked to refuse, but had no good excuse for doing so.

“Don’t stay long!” he said, rather sharply.

“I won’t keep him long.”

When they were in the street Mr. Perkins said: “I don’t like the looks of that bookkeeper of yours.”

“Nor do I,” returned Chester.

“I wouldn’t trust him any further than I could see him. Who was that Ralston? Have you ever seen him before?”

“Once. He doesn’t come into the office when Mr. Fairchild is at home.”

“Do you know anything about him?”

“I know—that is, I have heard that he is a well-known gambler.”

“By the great horn spoon, if I didn’t think so! He seemed very anxious to show me round the city.”

“He would probably have taken you to a gambling house.”

“Not if I was in my senses. I don’t gamble, and I hope you don’t.”

“I shouldn’t know how,” answered Chester, with a smile.

“Have you any engagement for this evening?”

“No, sir.”

“What time do you leave the office?”

“At five o’clock.”

“Then come round to the hotel and take dinner with me. I don’t know anyone in the city, and I shall be glad to have your company this evening. We will take a walk together, and you can show me what’s worth seeing.”

“Are you not afraid that I will take you to a gambling house?” asked Chester, with a smile.

“I’ll risk it.”

“You would find Mr. Ralston a better guide.”

“But not so safe a one. I shall be satisfied with you.”

When Chester returned to the office Mullins asked, sharply: “What did Perkins want to say to you?”

“He asked me to dine with him to-night at the Fifth Avenue Hotel.”

“Speak a good word for me, Chester,” said Ralston, with unusual affability. “I would like to become better acquainted with him.”

“What shall I say, Mr. Ralston?”

“Tell him I am a prominent man, and expect to be nominated for Congress next fall.”

This he said with a wink. Chester and the bookkeeper laughed.

“I’ll tell him,” said Chester.

CHAPTER XXII.

DICK RALSTON’S FATHER.

When Chester followed Mr. Perkins into the great dining room of the Fifth Avenue he was rather dazzled by its size and the glistening appearance of the tables.

“I hope you have brought your appetite with you, Chester,” said his Western friend. “The Fifth Avenue sets a good table.”

“My appetite is sure to be good. I was kept so busy to-day that I had hardly time to buy a sandwich for lunch.”

“All the better! You’ll enjoy your meal. As for me, I don’t have the appetite I do at home. There’s nothing like a tramp on the open prairie to make a man feel peckish.”

“Have you ever been in New York before, Mr. Perkins?”

“Not since I was a boy. I was born up Albany way, and came here when I was about your age. But, Lord, the New York of that day wasn’t a circumstance to what it is now. There was no Elevated railroad then, nor horse cars either, for that matter, and where this hotel stands there was a riding school or something of that sort.”

“Are you going to stay here long?”

“I go to Washington to-morrow, stopping at Philadelphia and Baltimore on the way. No. I have no business in Washington, but I think by the time a man is fifty odd he ought to see the capital of his country. I shall shake hands with the President, too, if I find him at home.”

“Have you ever been further West than Minneapolis?”

“Yes, I have been clear out to the Pacific. I’ve seen the town of Tacoma, where you’ve got five lots. I shall write out to a friend in Portland to buy me as many. Then we shall both have an interest there.”

“You think the lots are worth something?”

“I know it. When the Northern Pacific Railroad is finished, every dollar your friend spent for his lots will be worth thirty or forty.”

“I hope your predictions will come true, Mr. Perkins.”

“Did I hear you speaking of Tacoma?” asked a gentleman on Chester’s left hand.

“Yes, sir.”

“I can tell you something about it. I live at Seattle.”

“Am I right about there being a future for the place?” asked Paul Perkins.

“You are. I may say that lots there are already worth twice what they were last week.”

“How’s that?”

“Because work on the railroad has been resumed, and there is no doubt now that it will be pushed to completion.”

“That settles it. I must own property there. I won’t wait to write, but will telegraph my friend in Portland to go there at once at my expense, and buy five—no, ten lots. I got that idea from you, Chester, and if I make a profit I shall feel indebted to you.”

“I shall be glad if it helps fill your pockets, Mr. Perkins.”

“Come up to my room for a while, Chester,” went on the other, “and we will consider what to do. We might go to the theater, but I think I would rather walk about here and there using my eyes. There is plenty to see in New York.”

“That will suit me, Mr. Perkins.”

About eight o’clock the two went downstairs. Near the entrance, just inside the hotel, Chester heard himself called by name.

Looking up, he recognized Felix Gordon.

“Are you going to the theater, Chester?” asked Felix.

“No, I think not.”

“Won’t you introduce me to your friend?”

“Mr. Perkins, this is Felix Gordon, nephew of our bookkeeper,” said Chester, unwillingly.

“Hope you are well, Mr. Gordon,” said Paul. “Are you fond of the theater?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Felix, eagerly. “There’s a good play at Palmer’s. I think you’d like it.”

“No doubt, but I’d rather see the streets of New York. As you are a friend of Chester, do me the favor to buy yourself a ticket,” and Mr. Perkins drew a two-dollar bill from his pocket and tendered it to Felix.

“I am ever so much obliged,” said Felix, effusively. “As it is time for the performance to commence, I’ll go at once, if you’ll excuse me.”

“Certainly. You don’t want to lose the beginning of the play.”

As Felix started off on a half run, Mr. Perkins said: “Do you know why I was so polite to Felix, who by all accounts isn’t your friend at all?”

“No, I was rather puzzled.”

“I wanted to get rid of him. He was probably sent here by his uncle as a spy upon us. Now he is disposed of.”

“I see you are shrewd,” said Chester, laughing.

“Yes, I’m a little foxy when there’s occasion,” rejoined Mr. Perkins. “Now, where shall we go?”

I will not undertake to describe the route followed by the two. The city was pretty much all new to the stranger from Minneapolis, and it mattered little where he went.

About ten o’clock the two witnessed from a distance a scene between a man of forty and an old, infirm man, apparently seventy years of age.

“The younger man is Ralston, the gambler,” said Chester, in excitement, when they were near enough to recognize the figures of the two.

“Halt a minute, and let us hear what it is all about,” returned Mr. Perkins.

“I am hungry,” said the old man, pitifully, “and I have no money for a bed. Have pity on me, Dick, and give me something.”

“You ought not to have come here,” returned Ralston, roughly. “Why didn’t you stay in the country, where you had a comfortable home?”

“In the poorhouse,” murmured the old man, sadly.

“Well, it’s no worse for being a poorhouse, is it?”

“But is it right for me to live there when you are rich and prosperous?”

“How do you know I am rich and prosperous?”

“By your dress. And there’s a diamond in your shirt bosom. That must be valuable.”

“It’s about all I own that is valuable. It was a fool’s errand that brought you here. You had better go back,” and Ralston prepared to go on.

“Won’t you give me a trifle, Dick?”

“Well, take that.”

“A quarter?”

“Yes; it will give you some supper.”

“But what shall I do for a bed?”

“Go to the station house. They’ll take in an old man like you.”

Before the aged man could renew his application the younger one had disappeared round the corner of the next street.

“Follow me, Chester,” said Paul Perkins. “I’m going to speak to the old man.”

He touched him on the shoulder.

“Are you in trouble, my friend?” he asked.

The old man, looking the picture of despondency in his ragged suit, and with his long, gray locks floating over his shoulders, turned at the words.

“Yes, sir,” he said, “I am poor and in trouble, and my heart is sore.”

“Is the man who has just left you related to you?”

“He is my only son.”

“He doesn’t seem kind to you.”

“No; he cares nothing for his old father.”

“How did you become so poor?”

“He is the cause. When he was turned twenty-one I was worth ten thousand dollars. He forged my name, more than once, and to save him I paid the forged notes. So it happened that I was turned out in my old age from the farm and the home that had been mine for twenty-five years, and in the end I was sent to the poorhouse.”

“Then he brought all this upon you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what he is now?”

“He tells me he is in business.”

“His business is carried on at the gambling house, so my young friend here assures me. You will get no help from him.”

“I begin to think so. Perhaps I was foolish to leave my home, poor as it was, and come here to ask help.”

“How much money will take you home?”

“Two dollars.”

“Here is a ten-dollar bill. Take it, get a meal and a night’s lodging and in the morning start for home. It is the best thing you can do. As for your son, you can only leave him to his own devices. A man who will treat his old father as he has treated you will never prosper.”

“Thank you, sir. I will follow your advice.”

“I would rather be in your position, old and poor as you are, than in his.”

“Chester,” added Mr. Perkins, as they walked on, “this Ralston is a more contemptible rascal than I thought. If my old father were living, I would give half the money I possess. While I had a dollar in my pocket he should share it.”

“I say the same, Mr. Perkins.”

When they reached the Fifth Avenue Hotel, Paul Perkins shook hands with Chester.

“Good-night,” he said. “You won’t see me for two weeks, perhaps, but I’ll be sure to find you out when I return to the city. I hope you won’t have any trouble with that scoundrel in the office.”

“Thank you, Mr. Perkins, but I am afraid I shall.”

“Don’t mind it if you do. Remember that you will always have a friend in Paul Perkins.”

CHAPTER XXIII.

CHESTER IS DISCHARGED.

“Well,” said David Mullins, addressing his cousin Felix, “did you go to the Fifth Avenue Hotel last evening?”

“Yes, Cousin David.”

“Did you see that man from Minneapolis and Chester?”

“Yes.”

“Where did they go?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” frowned Mullins. “And why not, I should like to know?”

“Because I went to Palmer’s Theater.”

“So that is the way you spent the quarter I gave you?” exclaimed the bookkeeper, indignantly.

“I couldn’t go to Palmer’s on that.”

“Did you go with them?” asked Mullins, hopefully.

“No, but Mr. Perkins gave me money to go.”

“What made him do it?”

“He thought I was a friend of Chester.”

“How much did he give you?”

“I occupied a dollar seat,” answered Felix, noncommittally.

He did not care to mention that the sum given him was two