IN DANGER.
JOSHUA handed Sam the five-twenty bond for five hundred dollars the next
morning.
“How much do you think you can sell it for, Sam?” he asked.
“I ought to get five hundred and fifty dollars for it,” said Sam.
“Five hundred and fifty dollars!” repeated Joshua, elated, for he knew
nothing about the money market, and supposed the bond would only bring
its par value. But the next words of Sam lowered his spirits.
“That’s what the bond is worth, but I don’t expect to get so much.”
“Why not?”
“The dealers will think it is stolen, and will refuse to buy unless I
sell it under price. It’s better to do that than keep the bond.”
“Yes,” said Joshua, hastily; “sell it any way, but get as much as you
can.”
“Trust me for that,” said Sam. “I’ll do better for you than you could do
for yourself; besides, running all the danger.”
“Thank you, Sam. I don’t know what I should do without you.”
“I never desert a friend,” said Sam, loftily. He should have added,
“while that friend has money.”
At twelve o’clock Sam left the store, ostensibly to get lunch, but
really to sell the bond. He went downtown, and had no difficulty in
disposing of the bond for five hundred and sixty dollars, the market
price.
“How much of this can I venture to take?” he said to himself.
After a little consideration, he divided the sum into two parts. Four
hundred dollars he set apart for Joshua. The balance--a hundred and
sixty dollars--he decided to retain as his commission. He relied upon
Joshua’s verdancy to help him in this barefaced swindle, and had his
story all ready for his credulous mind.
He was half an hour late at the store, but received the sharp reprimand
of his employer with equanimity, consoling himself with the hundred and
sixty dollars he had hidden in his pocket.
It was not until the six o’clock dinner that he met Joshua.
“Well,” said the latter, eagerly, “did you sell the bond?”
“Yes.”
“How much did you get?”
“I hope you won’t be disappointed, Joshua, but I had to submit to be
cheated. The old fellow felt sure it was stolen, when I refused to refer
him to anybody in proof of my right to sell the bond. He wanted to get
it for seventy-five cents on the dollar, but I got him up to eighty.”
“How much did that come to?” asked Joshua, who was not strong in
mathematics.
“Four hundred dollars.”
“Then I was cheated out of a hundred and fifty,” said Joshua,
disappointed.
“It couldn’t be helped. You’d rather have four hundred dollars than
nothing, I suppose.”
“Yes, of course; but the man was a swindler.”
“Of course he was,” said Sam, cheerfully. “I’d like to kick him myself;
but I’ll tell you what, Joshua, you may think yourself lucky to get off
as well as you have. Nobody can prove that you took the money, but the
bond could be proved against you, as your father no doubt remembers the
number of it. Didn’t I do right to sell, or would you rather have had me
bring back the bond?”
“I am glad you sold it, only a feller doesn’t like to be cheated.”
“I shouldn’t wonder if the old man thought that way, when he found the
bond was gone,” said Sam, slyly.
“You needn’t speak of that!” said Joshua, irritably. “When would you
advise me to start for the West?”
“To-morrow. The fact is, the old man is liable to be after you with a
sharp stick any day, and the sooner you get out of his reach the better.
I’ll go round with you to-night, and inquire the price of tickets. You’d
better buy a ticket for Chicago.”
“I wish I knew somebody in Chicago,” said Joshua, whose inexperience as
a traveler made him shrink from such a long journey.
“Oh, you’ll get along well enough!” said Sam. “Just try to find some
cheap boarding house when you get out there, and then go around and look
for a place in a store. Plenty of fellows make money there. When you’re
a rich man you can come back East again. You can pay up the old man what
you took from him, and that’ll make him all right.”
“Ye-es,” said Joshua, hesitatingly; “but it would be mean in him to take
it, considering I am his only son.”
“You’d get it back again some time, you know; so what’s the odds?”
Though Mr. Drummond was far from being a model father, I by no means
defend the disrespectful allusion to him as “the old man.” Many boys are
thus disrespectful in speech who really respect and love their fathers;
but, even then, the custom is offensive to good taste and good feeling,
and is always to be condemned.
“You owe me some money, you know, Sam,” said Joshua. “Can’t you pay me
before I go?”
“Certainly,” said Sam. “I’ll do it now, if you can change a five. I
raised some money from a fellow that was owing me.”
So saying, he tendered Joshua a five-dollar bill from the hundred and
sixty he had reserved as his commission, and the latter gave him back
the change. This raised Joshua’s spirits somewhat, and enhanced his idea
of Sam’s honesty, as he had begun to fear he should lose the money.
“Now, Joshua,” said Sam, tucking the money into his vest pocket, “you
must come to the theatre with me this evening at my expense. I want your
last evening in New York to be a jolly one.”
“Thank you,” said Joshua, graciously; “I’d like to go.”
So they went to Wallack’s Theatre, and had got quite interested in the
performance, when, all at once, Joshua clutched his companion by the
arm.
“What’s the matter?” inquired the wondering Sam.
“Do you see that man?” said Joshua, pointing to a gentleman on the
opposite side of the house, in a row near the stage.
“Yes, I see him. He ain’t very handsome. What’s his name?”
“It’s a man from Stapleton, a neighbor of ours. If he sees me, I’m
lost!” and Joshua began to tremble. “Let us go out.”
“It’s a pity to lose the play,” said Sam, reluctantly.
“But I’m in danger,” said Joshua, nervously.
“I’ll tell you what. We’ll go out quietly, and go upstairs, where he
can’t see us.”
“Do you think it will be safe?”
“Of course it will. Come along.”
They left their seats in the parquet, and went upstairs, where they took
back seats, inferior to those they had occupied below, but out of range
of the man from Stapleton.
“I am afraid he will see me when I go out,” said Joshua.
“We can go five minutes before the play is over,” said Sam.
Satisfied with this arrangement, Joshua stayed on, and enjoyed the play,
now that his anxiety was removed.
The play went on, but about a quarter to eleven, when it was evident
that it was nearly over, Sam said: “We’d better be going, Joshua. We can
get out before the grand rush, and your friend from Stapleton will be
none the wiser.”
“Yes, come along,” said Joshua, eagerly.
But, as Burns has it, “The best-laid schemes of mice and men oft gang
aglee.” The same thought of getting out before the grand rush occurred
to Mr. Draper, of Stapleton, and when the two boys emerged from the
theatre they met face to face.
“Why, Joshua Drummond!” said Mr. Draper, in surprise. “How came you
here? I didn’t know you were here!”
“Then he hasn’t heard,” thought Joshua, recovering, in a measure, from
his temporary panic.
“I’ve only been here a day or two,” he answered.
“Are you going to live in New York?”
“Yes,” said Joshua. “I’m going to get a place in a store.”
“You are in a store already, Sam?” said Mr. Draper to Joshua’s
companion.
“Yes, sir. I am in a store on Eighth avenue.”
“Do you like being in the city?”
“Oh, yes; I wouldn’t go back to the country for anything.”
“I am glad I met you both. I will tell your father I met you, Joshua.”
This proposal was not agreeable to Joshua, for obvious reasons; but, of
course, he did not dare to say so.
“When are you going back to Stapleton?” he asked, faintly.
“To-morrow night.”
“And to-morrow night I shall be on my way out West,” thought Joshua.
“Good-night to you both.”
“Good-night.”
“You had a narrow escape, Joshua,” said Sam. “It’s lucky he didn’t know
about your leaving home without leave. I didn’t recognize him when you
first pointed him out to me. Now I suppose I shall get into a scrape
with your father for not telegraphing to him that I had met you. It’s
pretty clear that the sooner you leave New York, the better.”
The next evening Mr. Draper dropped into Jacob Drummond’s store.
“Well, Mr. Drummond,” said he, “I met your son in the city.”
“You met Joshua?” exclaimed Mr. Drummond, eagerly, pausing in cutting
off a dress pattern. “Where?”
“At Wallack’s Theatre.”
“At the theatre! The young villain! Was he alone?”
“He was with Sam Crawford. What is the matter?”
“He left home without leave. I shall go up to-morrow and bring him
back.”
He went to New York the next day, and had an unsatisfactory interview
with Sam. The latter admitted having seen Joshua, but said he did not
like to betray him. He said that he had tried to induce Joshua to return
home, but that the latter had refused. He said he did not know where he
was now, but thought he had gone to Boston. Mystified and bewildered,
Mr. Drummond was forced to go home without his son, who was now some
distance on the way to Chicago. Having accompanied him thus far, we must
now go back to our principal hero, and inquire how Walter was getting on
with his Western school.
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