In the evening Paul found old Jerry anxiously awaiting him.
“Have you found a new room, Paul?” he asked, eagerly.
“I haven’t had time,” Paul answered, “but I’ll go at once and see about
it.”
“James will be here tomorrow,” said the old man, nervously, “and I--I
am afraid of him. He is a bad man. He wants me to give him money. You
know I have no money, Paul?” he concluded with a look of appeal.
Now Paul knew that old Jerry had money, and he could not truthfully
answer as the old man desired him.
“You say so, and that is enough,” he said.
“But it’s true,” urged Jerry, who understood the doubt in Paul’s mind.
“How could I get any money? What you give me is all we have to live on.”
“That isn’t much, at any rate.”
“No, Paul, it isn’t much. Couldn’t you give me half a dollar more? Two
dollars and a half are very little for me to live on and pay the rent,”
whined the old man.
The appeal would have moved Paul if he had not suspected that the old
man had a considerable sum of money laid away. As it was, it only
disgusted him and made him feel angry at Jerry’s attempt to deceive
him.
“Are you sure you get no money except what I give you?” he asked,
pointedly.
“What do you mean, Paul?” demanded the old man, looking alarmed. “What
gave you the idea that I had any other money?”
“At any rate,” said the telegraph boy, “you haven’t any money to throw
away on this son of yours. I have no doubt he’s a bad man, as you say.”
“He was always bad and troublesome, James was,” said old Jerry. “He was
always wanting money from the time he was a boy.”
“When he was a boy there was some reason for his asking it, but now he
is a man grown, isn’t he?”
“Yes, yes.”
“How old is he?”
“James must be nigh upon thirty,” answered Jerry, after a little
reflection. “You won’t hire too expensive a room, Paul?” he added. “You
know we are poor, very poor!”
“Not unless I am willing to pay the extra cost myself.”
“Don’t do that! Give me the extra money, Paul,” said Jerry, with eager
cupidity. “I--I find it hard to get along with two dollars and a half a
week.”
“You forget, Jerry,” said Paul, coldly, “that I must have my meals. I
can’t live without eating.”
“You eat too much, Paul, I’ve long thought so. It’s hurtful to eat too
much. It’s--it’s bad for the health.”
“I’ll take the risk,” said Paul, with a short laugh. “I am not afraid
of dying of gout, Jerry, with my present bill of fare.”
“If you wouldn’t mind my going out a few hours every day, and asking
kind gentlemen to help me, Paul, we--we could get along better.”
“I won’t hear of it, Jerry,” said Paul, sternly. “If I hear of your
going out to beg I will leave you and go off and live by myself. Then
there will be no two dollars and a half coming to you every week.”
“No, no, don’t leave me, Paul,” said Jerry, thoroughly alarmed by this
threat. “I won’t go out if you don’t want me to, though it’s very, very
foolish to stay in, when there are so many kind gentlemen and ladies
ready to give money to old Jerry.”
“Besides,” added Paul, “if you go out and stand in the street, your son
will sooner or later find you out, and make trouble for you.”
“So he will, so he will,” chimed in the miser, with the old look of
alarm on his face. “You are right, Paul, you are right. I must put it
off. I--I wish he would go away somewhere--to--to California, or some
place a great way off.”
Paul saw that he had produced the effect he intended upon the old man’s
mind, and went out at once to look for a new room. He finally found one
some half mile farther up town, in Ludlow Street--a little below Grand.
The room was better furnished than the one in which he and Jerry had
lived for some years. There was a cheap carpet on the floor, a bed in
one corner, and a shabby but comfortable lounge, on which Paul himself
proposed to sleep. The rent was two dollars a month more than they
had been accustomed to pay, but Paul concluded to say nothing of this
to the old man, but quietly to pay it out of his own pocket. It would
be but fifty cents a week, and he thought he could make that extra
sum in some way. He was beginning to be more fastidious about his
accommodations, now that he had seen how people lived uptown.
In fact, Paul was becoming ambitious. It was a very proper ambition,
too. He had lived long enough in a squalid, miserable room, and now he
meant to be better provided for.
“I am getting older,” he said to himself. “I ought to earn more money.
I am sure I can somehow. I will keep my eyes open and see what I can
find.”
Paul resolved to buy a bureau, if he could get one cheap, for at
present he had absolutely no place in which to keep his small stock
of clothing. He did not know exactly where the money was coming from,
but he was hopeful, and had faith in himself. He was not waiting for
something to turn up, as many lazy boys do, but he meant himself to
turn up something.
Having concluded a bargain for the room, paying a dollar down, and
promising to pay a further sum on Saturday night when he received his
weekly pay, he returned to old Jerry.
“Well, Jerry,” he said cheerfully, “I’ve found a room.”
“Where is it, Paul?”
“In Ludlow Street.”
“Then let us go--at once. James might change his mind, and come round
tonight. I don’t want to see him. He is a bold, bad man.”
Paul suggested that they had better not leave word with the neighbors
where they were going, as this might furnish a clew to James Barclay,
and put him on his father’s track.
Old Jerry eagerly assented to this, and the two started for their new
home. They had very little to carry--at any rate, this was the case
with the miser, and Paul’s wardrobe was not too extensive for him to
carry it all with him at once.
When Jerry saw the room that Paul had engaged he was alarmed.
“This--this is too fine for us, Paul,” he said. “We can’t afford to pay
for it. How much is the rent?”
“Six dollars a month,” answered Paul.
“We shall be ruined!” ejaculated Jerry, turning pale.
“It is two dollars more than we paid in the old place,” said Paul, “but
it won’t come out of you. I will make a new arrangement with you--I
will pay the entire rent, and give you a dollar and a half a week.”
“Make it two dollars, Paul,” said Jerry, in a coaxing tone.
“What are you thinking of? Do you want to starve me?” demanded Paul,
sternly.
“I--I am so poor, Paul,” whined the miser.
“So am I,” answered Paul, “but I must keep enough to pay for my meals.”
Jerry saw that it would be useless to contest the point further, and
settled himself in his new quarters, rather enjoying the improvement,
but groaning inwardly over Paul’s extravagance. Paul threw himself on
the lounge, after taking off his coat and vest, and, covering himself
with a blanket, was soon sound asleep.
[Illustration: PAUL THREW HIMSELF ON THE LOUNGE, AND SOON WAS FAST
ASLEEP.]