THE EMPLOYMENT OFFICE.
“Wade Brooks, the captain of the cutter told me you had a hard time on
board of the yacht, and that her captain took away from you the hundred
dollars which Mr. Wallgood had given you,” said Capt. Trustleton, when
they were by themselves at the hotel.
“Capt. Bendig was pretty rough on me; but then that’s just my luck,”
said Wade, laughing.
“Since you left your home in Midhampton, I have inquired into your
situation there; and I must say that I do not blame you for leaving
your place,” continued the captain. “I don’t know whether you intend to
return, or not; but here is a sum of money to make good your loss on
board of the yacht.”
Capt. Trustleton put a roll of bills into the hand of the boy, and
then left him before he had time even to thank him for the gift. He
was going to say that he did not intend to go back to the home of Obed
Swikes; but he had no time to do so. There he stood in front of the
empty chair in which the president of the bank had been seated, with
the roll of bills in his hand. It was in the public reading-room,
where plenty of people were gathered; and he did not observe that some
of them were looking at him.
“Well, this is _not_ just my luck,” said he to himself. “But I will bet
there is not a man in New York smart enough to get this away from me.”
Then he could not help asking himself why Capt. Trustleton had given
him this money at this time. Why did he not wait till they got back to
Midhampton? He would not let Matt and Lon go out of his sight for a
single minute, though they had not a cent of money; but he had given
him a pile of bills, and did not seem to care where he went. He did not
quite understand it at first; but, after he had considered it for a
while, he was confident that he got at the captain’s meaning.
The captain had told him that he should not blame him if he did not
go back to live with Obed Swikes. He did not expect him to go back;
and for this reason he had given him the money at the present time.
Certainly Capt. Trustleton had been very kind to him. He had given
him a dollar once before. It was plain enough what the captain meant.
Then perhaps he did not wish him to go back to Midhampton, for he knew
something about the burning of Garlick’s barn.
“That’s it! He wants me out of the way!” exclaimed Wade to himself.
“With all these bills in my pocket, I shall not be hungry at present.
He wants me to take myself out of the way, and I’ll do it.”
Wade held the roll of bills given to him tightly clinched in his fist,
and his hand in his pocket. The bitter experience of a few days before
had made him wise and prudent. He was afraid even to count the money
while so many people were about, though he was very anxious to know how
much he had. He judged by the size of the roll, that it must contain
as much as twenty dollars; but if there were only ten he should be
satisfied, for that would feed and lodge him till he could find a place
to work.
He walked about the hotel for an hour longer, with the bills still in
his hand. He did not see any thing more of Capt. Trustleton or the two
boys. He wondered what had become of them. He concluded that they had
gone to their room to talk over the events of the last two days. He
wanted to renew his search for a place to work, but he did not like to
go off without saying any thing to Capt. Trustleton. Finally he went to
the office, and asked the clerk where the captain was.
“He has taken the train for home: he went about an hour ago,” replied
the clerk to his question.
“All right,” replied Wade; and he was sure now that Capt. Trustleton
did not want him to go back to Midhampton.
The wanderer wanted to count his money before he left the hotel: if
he did not, he would not be able to tell whether he lost any or not.
Besides, the amount would help him in making his calculations for
the future. He looked about the hotel for a place where he could do
it without being seen. He looked into the reading-room, among other
apartments; and, as it was about eleven o’clock in the forenoon, it was
by this time quite deserted. Fixing himself in a corner, he took the
bills from his pocket.
It was a pleasing task; for this time it was not stolen money, and
there was no one to take it away from him,--no one that he knew of. The
first note he looked at was a ten-dollar bill; so was the second, and
the third. The figures were so big, that he had to stop to rest his
imagination. Thirty dollars so far! He began to think of buying out
some of the rich men he had heard of in New York.
Again another ten-dollar bill was turned up, and then another, and
another: in fact, every bill of the pile was of this denomination, and
there were ten of them. One hundred dollars! And then it came to his
mind, that the captain had said that he should make good the loss he
had sustained by the treachery of Capt. Bendig. Wade was almost beside
himself at this extraordinary luck, as he called it; but after a while
he cooled off. He was ten times as much elated this time as he was when
he had the same sum before. The money seemed to be ever so much more
real than before.
With his hand on the money all the time, he walked about the room,
thinking what he should do next. He wanted a place. He did not think,
because he had money, that he could live without work: he wanted to
earn his own living, and put the money into a savings bank where it
would pay interest; and then he should have something to lean upon
if he got out of occupation, or should be sick, so that he could not
support himself.
While he was thinking of the matter, he happened to glance at one of
the newspapers that lay on the table. He saw the word “Wants.” He had
seen the same thing in the Midhampton paper; and he knew that people
advertised when they wanted help, as men and women did when they wanted
places. He wondered that he had not thought of this before; for perhaps
this paper contained a score of places which he might obtain.
He took the newspaper, and sat down in the corner of the room to study
the column of “Wants.” He found plenty of places that he thought he
should like. “Wanted, a young man to drive an express-wagon: good
recommendations required.” He could drive an express-wagon, for
he had done it a great many times; but, unfortunately, he had no
recommendations, good or bad. This was the difficulty which Caleb
Klucker had pointed out to him. He looked at a great many other
advertisements; but all of them required testimonials, as Caleb had
called them.
He was beginning to take a very hopeless view of the situation, when
his attention was attracted to an advertisement in another column:
“Wanted, a young man with one hundred dollars, to act as cashier in a
restaurant. Good security and good interest given for the money.”
Wade realized at that moment that he was “a young man with one hundred
dollars.” He did not comprehend what the duties of a “cashier in a
restaurant” were, though he concluded that the principal one must be
to take the payment for meals. He had been to several such places in
Bridgeport and in New York; and he had noticed that a man was employed
to take the money. He had been to school enough to learn his arithmetic
pretty well, and he thought he could make change as fast as any of the
men he had seen doing it.
Wade fixed in his mind the street and number where applicants for this
desirable situation were required to call; and then he started to find
the place. He inquired of a porter at the door where the street was. It
was a long walk to the place, and he feared that the situation might be
taken up before he could apply for it. It was nearly two hours before
he reached his destination. It was a small office up one flight of
stairs, in an old wooden building. It was called “an employment office.”
At the side of the door were placards, stating that all sorts of
persons were wanted. “One hundred waiters” were wanted. “Twenty-five
male cooks” were wanted. “One hundred young men were wanted to drive
express-wagons.” “Fifty men as porters were wanted.” “Seventy-five
young men were wanted as clerks in stores.” “One hundred boys were
wanted in all sorts of places.”
Wade wondered he had not come upon any such place before. He had been
wandering all over the city in search of a place; and here was one
where hundreds of young men and boys were wanted. It was just the place
for him; for, among all these situations, he was sure he could find one
that would exactly suit him, especially as he was not very particular
what kind of work he did. He was willing to be a waiter in a saloon,
an errand-boy, or a clerk: he was even willing to buckle right down to
hard work.
With his hand on his money, he ascended the stairs, and found the
sign, “Employment Office,” on a door which he opened and entered. The
room he went into was a small office, the walls of which were covered
with “wants” like those he had seen at the street-door. Behind a short
counter was a dapper-looking man with a hook-nose, who smiled sweetly
upon the anticipated customer. He was dressed in plaid clothes, and had
a great diamond in his shirt-bosom which was big enough to qualify him
to be a hotel-clerk.
“Good-morning, sir: what can we do for you?” asked the man, who called
himself an “employment broker,” and for short reduced the term to
simple “broker.”
“I want to get a place to go to work,” replied Wade, as intent on
business as the broker.
“One dollar, if you please,” added the man of places, holding out his
hand to receive the fee.
“What’s that for?” asked the young man from the country, rather taken
aback by this early demand.
“For one dollar we register your name; and, as soon as we find a place
that will suit you, we put you into it without any further charge,”
replied the broker.
“I am willing to give you a dollar if you will get me the place,” added
Wade, who did not think it was just the thing to take the pay before
the work was done; but then, he was “one from the country.”
“We don’t do business in that way. We can’t keep an office open for
those that want places for nothing: we have been fooled too many times
for that,” said the man, with a knowing wink. “What sort of a place do
you want?”
“Cashier in a restaurant,” replied Wade confidently. “The paper says, a
young man with one hundred dollars.”
“Have you the money?”
“I have.”
“That’s another thing,” replied the broker.