Adrift in New York: Tom and Florence Braving the World, Jr. Horatio Alger [top fiction books of all time txt] 📗

very sharp, but you are not quite so sharp as I am.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Then I will be more explicit. It’s out of your power to make use of the boy against me, because——”

“Well?”

“Because he is not in the city.”

“Where is he, then?”

“Where you are not likely to find him.”

“If you have killed him——” Bolton began, but Curtis interrupted him.

“The boy is safe—I will tell you that much,” he said; “but for reasons which you can guess, I think it better that he should be out of New York. When the proper time comes, and all is safe, he may come back, but not in time to help you in your cunning plans, Mr. Tim Bolton.”

“Then, I suppose,” said Bolton, assuming an air of mortification and discomfiture, “it is no use for me to remain here any longer.”

“You are quite right. I wish you a pleasant journey home. Give my love to Florence when you see her.”

“That man is a fiend!” soliloquized Bolton, as he walked back, leisurely, to his place of business. “Let me get hold of Dodger and I will foil him yet!”

Chapter XXVII. Dodger Strikes Luck.

When Dodger landed in San Francisco, in spite of the fact that he had made the journey against his will, he felt a natural exhilaration and pleasure in the new and striking circumstances and scenes in which he found himself placed.

It was in the year 1877, and the city was by no means what it is now. Yet it probably contained not far from two hundred thousand people, lively, earnest, enterprising. All seemed busy and hopeful, and Dodger caught the contagion.

As he walked with the reporter to a modest hotel, where the rates were a dollar and a half a day, not far from Montgomery Street, Randolph Leslie asked:

“How do you like San Francisco thus far, Arthur?”

It will be remembered that Dodger, feeling that the name by which he had hitherto been known was hardly likely to recommend him, adopted the one given him by Curtis Waring.

“I think I shall like it ever so much,” answered Dodger. “Everybody seems to be wideawake.”

“Do you think you will like it better than New York?”

“I think a poor boy will have more of a chance of making a living here. In New York I was too well known. If I got a place anywhere some one would recognize me as Tim Bolton’s boy—accustomed to tend bar—or some gentleman would remember that he had bought papers of me. Here nobody knows me, and I can start fair.”

“There is a great deal in what you say,” returned Leslie. “What do you think of trying to do?”

“First of all I will write a letter to Florence, and tell her I am all right. How long does it take a letter to go from here to New York?”

“About seven days.”

“And it took us over four months! That seems wonderful.”

“Yes; there is a great difference between coming by sea around Cape Horn and speeding across the country on an express train.”

“If I could only know how Florence is getting along,” Dodger said, anxiously. “I suppose she thinks I am dead.”

“You forget the letter you gave to the vessel we spoke off the coast of Brazil.”

“Yes; but do you think it went straight?”

“The chances are in favor of it. However, your idea is a good one. Write, by all means, and then we will discuss future plans.”

“What are your plans, Mr. Leslie?”

“I shall try to secure a reporter’s berth on one of the daily papers—the Call or Chronicle. I will wait a few days, however, as I have a few hundred dollars by me, and can afford to take a little time to look around.”

“I wish I were as well provided; but I have less than twenty-five dollars.”

“Don’t worry about that, Arthur,” said Randolph, laying his hand affectionately on the boy’s shoulder. “I shall not allow you to want.”

“Thank you, Mr. Leslie,” said Dodger, gratefully. “It’s something new to me to have a friend like you. But I don’t want to be any expense to you. I am large enough and strong enough to earn my own living.”

“True; and I feel sure you will have a chance in this enterprising city.”

They bought copies of the day’s papers, and Dodger looked eagerly over the advertising columns.

At length he saw an advertisement that read as follows:

WANTED—A young man of 18 or 20 to assist in the office of a local express. Inquire at No. — —— St.”

“Do you think I would answer for such a place?” he asked.

“I don’t see why not. At any rate, ‘nothing venture, nothing gain.’ You may as well go around and inquire. And, by the way, as your suit is rather shabby, let me lend you one of mine. We are of nearly the same size.”

“Thank you, Mr. Leslie.”

“Fine feathers make fine birds, you know, and a neat dress always increases the chances of an applicant for employment, though, when it is carried too far, it is apt to excite suspicion. I remember a friend of mine advertised for a bookkeeper. Among the applicants was a young man wearing a sixty-dollar suit, a ruffled shirt, a handsome gold watch and a diamond pin. He was a man of taste, and he was strongly impressed with the young man’s elegant appearance. So, largely upon the strength of these, he engaged him, and in less than six months discovered that he had been swindled to the extent of eight hundred dollars by his æsthetic bookkeeper.”

“Then I will leave my diamond pin at home,” said Dodger, smiling. “Suppose they ask me for recommendations?”

“I will go with you and indorse you. I happen to know one or two prominent gentlemen in San Francisco—among them the president of a bank—and I presume my indorsement will be sufficient.”

Dodger went back to the hotel, put on a suit of Mr. Leslie’s, got his boots blacked, and then, in company with the young reporter, went to the express office.

“I am afraid some one will have been engaged already,” said the reporter; “but if not, your chances will be good.”

They entered a good-sized office on a prominent street, and Dodger inquired for Mr. Tucker.

A small man of about forty, keen-eyed and alert, eyed him attentively.

“I am Mr. Tucker,” he said.

“I saw your advertisement for an assistant, Mr. Tucker,” said Dodger, modestly; “have you filled the place?”

“Let me see,” said Tucker, reflectively, “you are the ninth young man who has applied—but the place is still open.”

“Then I am afraid you won’t want me, as you have rejected so many.”

“I don’t know. How long have you been in the city?”

“I only just arrived.”

“Where from?”

“From New York.”

“Have you any idea of going to the mines when you get money enough?”

“I think I would prefer to remain in the city.”

“Good! How is your education?”

“I have never been to college,” answered Dodger, with a smile.

“Good! I don’t care for your college men. I am a practical man myself.”

“I am a poor scholar, but Mr. Leslie tells me I write a fair hand.”

“Let me see a specimen of your writing.”

Now Dodger had taken special pains on the voyage to improve his penmanship, with excellent results.

So it happened that the specimen which he furnished had the good fortune to please Mr. Tucker.

“Good!” he said. “You will, a part of the time, be taking orders. Your handwriting is plain and will do. Never mind about Latin and Greek. You won’t need it. Chinese would be more serviceable to you here. When can you go to work?”

“To-morrow morning. To-day, if necessary,” answered Dodger, promptly.

Mr. Tucker seemed pleased with his answer.

“To-morrow morning let it be, then! Hours are from eight in the morning till six at night.”

“Very well, sir.”

“Your wages will be fifteen dollars a week. How will that suit you?”

Dodger wanted to indulge in a loud whoop of exultation, for fifteen dollars was beyond his wildest hopes; but he was too politic to express his delight. So he contented himself with saying:

“I shall be quite satisfied with that.”

“Oh, by the way, I suppose I ought to have some reference,” said Mr. Tucker, “though as a general thing I judge a good deal by outward appearance.”

“I can refer you to my friend, Mr. Leslie, here.”

“And who will indorse him?” asked the expressman, shrewdly.

Leslie smiled.

“I see, Mr. Tucker, you are a thorough man of business. I can refer you to Mr. ——, president of the —— Bank in this city.”

“That is sufficient, sir. I am sure you would not refer me to him unless you felt satisfied that he would speak favorably of you. I won’t, therefore, take the trouble to inquire. Where are you staying?”

“At the Pacific Hotel; but we shall take a private apartment within a day or two.”

As they passed out of the office, Randolph Leslie said:

“You’ve done splendidly, Arthur.”

“Haven’t I? I feel like a millionaire.”

“As you are to go to work to-morrow, we may as well take up a room at once. It will be cheaper.”

In a short time they had engaged a neat suite of rooms, two in number, not far from the Palace Hotel, at twenty dollars per month.

The next day Leslie procured a position on the San Francisco Chronicle, at twenty-five dollars per week.

Chapter XXVIII. Florence Receives A Letter.

The discovery, through Tim Bolton, that Curtis Waring had a hand in the disappearance of Dodger, partially relieved the anxiety of Florence—but only partially.

He might be detained in captivity, but even that was far better than an accident to life or limb.

She knew that he would try to get word to her at the earliest opportunity, in order to relieve her fears.

But week after week passed, and no tidings came.

At length, at the end of ten weeks, a note came to her, written on a rough sheet of paper, the envelope marked by a foreign stamp.

It ran thus:

“Dear Florence:—I am sure you have worried over my disappearance. Perhaps you thought I was dead, but I was never better in my life. I am on the ship Columbia, bound for San Francisco, around Cape Horn; and just now, as one of the officers tells me, we are off the coast of Brazil.

“There is a ship coming north, and we are going to hail her and give her letters to carry home, so I hope these few lines will reach you all right. I suppose I am in for it, and must keep on to San Francisco. But I haven’t told you yet how I came here.

“It was through a trick of your cousin, Curtis Waring. I haven’t time to tell you about it; but I was drugged and brought aboard in my sleep; when I woke up I was forty miles at sea.

“Don’t worry about me, for I have a good friend on board, Mr. Randolph Leslie, who has been a reporter on one of the New York daily papers. He advises me to get something to do in San Francisco, and work till I have earned money enough to get home. He says I can do better there, where I am not known, and can get higher pay. He is giving me lessons every day, and he says I am learning fast.

“The ship is almost here, and I must stop. Take good care of yourself, and remember me to Mrs. O’Keefe, and I will write you again as soon as I get to San Francisco.

“Dodger.

“P. S.—Don’t let on to Curtis that you have heard from me, or he might try to play me some trick in San Francisco.”

Florence’s face was radiant when she had read the letter.

Dodger was alive, well, and in good spirits. The letter arrived during the afternoon, and she put on her street dress at once and went over to the apple-stand and read the letter to Mrs. O’Keefe.

“Well, well!” ejaculated the apple-woman. “So it’s that ould thafe of the worruld, Curtis Waring, that has got hold of poor Dodger, just as Tim told us. It seems mighty quare to me that he should want to stale poor Dodger. If it was you, now, I could understand it.”

“It seems strange to me, Mrs. O’Keefe,” said Florence, thoughtfully. “I thought it might be because Dodger was my friend, but that doesn’t seem to be sufficient explanation. Don’t you think we ought to show this letter to Mr. Bolton?”

“I was going to suggest that same. If you’ll give it to me, Florence, I’ll get Mattie to tend my stand, and slip round wid it to Tim’s right off.”

“I will go with you, Mrs. O’Keefe.”

Mattie, who was playing around the corner, was summoned.

“Now, Mattie, just mind the stand, and don’t be runnin’ away, or them boys will get away wid my whole mornin’s profits. Do you hear?”

“Yes, mum.”

“And don’t you be eatin’ all the while you are here. Here’s one