IN WHICH JACK RESTORES THE OBLONG YELLOW ENVELOPE AND ITS CONTENTS TO
ITS OWNER.
Of course Jack had a budget of interesting news to tell his mother and
sister at the supper table that night.
“Oh, Jack! How could you do it?” exclaimed Annie when he described how
he grabbed the loaded revolver just as Oliver Bird fired it.
“Well, sis, I never stopped to consider why I did it--the whole thing
was over in a moment.”
“And you actually saved the man’s life?”
“Mr. Bird is sure of it, and that’s the way the evening papers put it,
so----”
“What! Is it printed in the paper? Let me see,” cried his sister,
excitedly.
Jack pointed out the article to her, and she began to read it with a
great deal of interest.
“But that isn’t all that happened to me,” grinned the lad, with his
mouth full of Irish stew.
“I should think that was enough for one day, John,” said his mother,
smiling.
“I found an envelope with a wad of money in it.”
“Jack Hazard, you don’t mean it!” cried Annie, dropping the paper at
this startling bit of intelligence.
“I don’t usually say what I don’t mean, sis.”
“You really and truly did find some money? How much?”
“You promise you won’t faint?”
“What nonsense!”
“Mr. Bishop and myself both counted it. It amounted to sixty seven
hundred dollars.”
Mother and daughter both held up their hands in amazement.
“Why, that’s a fortune!”
“It would be to us; but probably the man who lost it considers such an
amount a mere bagatelle.”
“Did you find the owner?”
“No; there was nothing in the envelope to identify the person to whom
the money belonged. Mr. Bishop says we may expect to see it advertised
for, probably to-morrow morning.”
“Surely you will get something for returning the money,” said his
sister.
“I shall be satisfied if I get fifteen dollars, so mother can pay the
agent Friday.”
“You ought to get a great deal more than that. A good many people would
keep that money, had they found it in the way you did. You ought to get
at least one hundred dollars.”
“Well, if I’m offered a hundred I sha’n’t refuse it, sis. You and
mother need a new dress each, and I should like to get them for you.”
“It’s very like you, Jack, to think of us first; but we’ll talk about
all that when we see what you do realize out of your find.”
“All right,” said Jack, helping himself to another hot biscuit.
“The whole neighborhood is talking about you, Jack,” said his sister.
“More than a dozen people whom we never saw before were in here to-day
talking to mother and saying ever so many flattering things about you.
Now, when they read to-night’s paper I’m afraid we shall have another
crowd to-morrow. Why, you’ll be considered a regular hero.”
“I’d like it better if they wouldn’t interest themselves so much with
our affairs, sis,” said Jack, in a tone of annoyance. “They wouldn’t
make themselves so prominent if we were dispossessed because we
couldn’t pay our rent.”
“I’m afraid we’ll have to submit with the best grace we can. It is one
of the penalties of newspaper notoriety.”
After supper Jack started to walk uptown to No. ---- East Sixty-second
Street, as he didn’t feel that he could afford carfare.
He reached Mr. Bird’s residence, a four-story brownstone front, a
little after eight o’clock.
He was very kindly received by the broker and his family, who regarded
him as the savior of the household.
He spent a very pleasant hour, and when he insisted that it was
time for him to go Mrs. Bird stepped up and presented him with a
very handsome little gold watch and chain as a small token of their
gratitude and esteem.
Jack was very much surprised, not expecting anything of the kind, and
for the first time in his life he was at a loss how to suitably express
himself.
The very first thing Jack did next morning when he reached the office
was to look over the “Lost and Found” column in the “Herald,” but he
failed to find anything having reference to the money he had found.
“Hello!” exclaimed Frank Simpson, who sat beside him, reading the
‘World.’ “Say, this is pretty tough!”
“What’s tough?” asked Jack, without looking up.
“Why, here’s a story about a woman who lost a big wad of money
yesterday.”
“What’s that?” asked Jack, with sudden interest.
“She and her husband had been saving up and pinching themselves for
the last twenty years to save enough money to buy a house where they
could spend their old age in security and comfort. They did buy a
house, but the city took it on a valuation because it stood in the way
of the new bridge, and they received sixty seven hundred dollars. They
left this money with the Blank Trust Company, on Wall Street. After
looking around some time, they bought another house, and yesterday the
woman drew the money from the trust company to pay for it and for the
new furniture and other things they wanted; but when she got home she
found that she had lost the envelope containing the money somewhere
on the street, but just where she has no idea. She’s about crazy over
her loss. Gee whiz! If that isn’t hard luck, I don’t know what is,”
concluded young Simpson, emphatically.
“Where does she live?” asked Jack, in a tone of great excitement.
“It’s down here somewhere,” answered Frank, looking over the article.
“Here it is, No. ---- Prescott Street, Bronx.”
“Let me have the paper,” cried Jack, grabbing it eagerly.
He glanced over the article with feverish interest; then he rushed into
Mr. Bishop’s office and pointed it out to that gentleman.
“I guess there’s no doubt but this woman is the person who lost the
very money that you picked up yesterday. The amount, as well as other
particulars, corresponds. Go around to the Blank Trust Company and have
them describe the woman and the notes they paid her. The cashier will
probably have a memorandum of the banks that issued the large notes,
at any rate. If the list corresponds with those in the envelope in
the safe, you had better take the package up to the address given in
the ‘World,’ and if the woman can describe the money with reasonable
accuracy and her description coincides with that furnished by the trust
company, you will be pretty safe in restoring to her the sum she lost.
I am very glad, for the poor woman’s sake, that you were the one who
found her money.”
Jack followed the manager’s suggestions, and the result was that they
were both satisfied they had located the rightful owner of the $6,700.
“Start right up there now, Jack, and get back as soon as you can,”
said Mr. Bishop. “The cashier will hand you the carfare.”
It was something over an hour before Jack reached the address printed
by the ‘World’--a small, two-story, frame building, one of a row of
six, on a side street off Westchester Avenue.
He rang the bell and a boy answered, holding the door partly ajar.
“I should like to see Mrs. Breeze,” said Jack, in a business-like way.
“Are you a reporter?” asked the boy, doubtfully.
“Well, hardly,” grinned the young messenger. “I’m from Wall Street.”
“Who are you talking to, Bobbie?” asked a woman’s voice rather
petulantly.
“There’s a boy here from Wall Street who says he wants to see you,”
answered the young hopeful.
“What does he want?”
“What do you want?” repeated the lad.
“I want to see Mrs. Breeze in reference to the money she lost.”
“Let him come in,” and Jack was admitted.
A sad-faced woman of fifty, with her eyes swollen from weeping, made
her appearance from a back room.
“Has any trace been found of my money?” asked the woman, with
suppressed eagerness.
“If you will describe the notes as well as you can remember them, I
will be able to answer you,” said Jack, who saw that Mrs. Breeze’s
personal description exactly corresponded with that furnished by the
trust company.
“The six one-thousand-dollar bills were new, but I didn’t notice the
name of the bank either on them or on the other notes, one of which was
a five-hundred-dollar and the other two one-hundred. I had them in a
large, oblong envelope. That is all I can say about them.”
“I think you have described them correctly,” said Jack, producing the
envelope he had picked up. “Is this your property?”
The woman pounced on the envelope like a hawk, opened the flap, took
out the money and counted it with eager eyes; then, satisfied that it
was all there, restored to her in the most wonderful manner after she
had given it up for lost, she sank back in her chair and began to cry
convulsively.
After a moment or two she recovered her composure and inquired of Jack
how the money had been found.
He told her how he had picked it up close to the entrance of the trust
company.
She had drawn the money at two o’clock, and Jack had found it close on
to four.
It seemed incredible that an envelope containing such a large sum of
money could have laid on the sidewalk of a prominent thoroughfare like
Wall Street, glanced at and walked over by many people, and yet no one
had had the curiosity to pick it up.
“What is your name?” asked Mrs. Breeze.
“Jack Hazard, madam.”
“You are an honest boy. I am sure you have a good mother and that
she is very proud of you. This money you have returned to me is the
savings of our entire life. I don’t like to think what the result might
have been if it had been lost for good and all. As testimony of our
gratitude I want you to accept these two bills,” and she offered Jack
the two hundred-dollar notes.
“No, ma’am,” said the boy. “I couldn’t think of taking so much money
from you.”
“But you must, or you will take away half the pleasure I feel at the
recovery of my money. Really, it is a great deal less than you really
deserve. I insist that you accept them,” said Mrs. Breeze firmly,
forcing the bills into his hand.
Jack saw she was intensely earnest in her demand, and with some
reluctance he put them in his pocket.
“I am very happy indeed that you have got your money back,” he said as
he rose to go.
“I feel like another woman to what I did before you came here. Be sure
I shall not soon forget the honest lad to whom I am indebted for its
recovery,” were her last words as Jack ran down the steps after bidding
her good-bye.