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STARRY FLAG SERIES
OLIVER OPTIC
THE STARRY FLAG SERIES,
BY OLIVER OPTIC.
I. THE STARRY FLAG; OR, THE YOUNG FISHERMAN OF CAPE ANN.
II. FREAKS OF FORTUNE; OR, HALF ROUND THE WORLD.
III. BREAKING AWAY; OR, THE FORTUNES OF A STUDENT.
IV. SEEK AND FIND; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF A SMART BOY.
V. MAKE OR BREAK; OR, THE RICH MAN'S DAUGHTER.
VI. DOWN THE RIVER; OR, BUCK BRADFORD AND HIS TYRANTS.
[Illustration: THE BANKER'S PRIVATE OFFICE.--Page 199.]
MAKE OR BREAK;
OR,
THE RICH MAN'S DAUGHTER.
BY
OLIVER OPTIC,
AUTHOR OF "YOUNG AMERICA ABROAD," "THE ARMY AND NAVY STORIES,"
"THE WOODVILLE STORIES," "THE BOAT-CLUB STORIES," "THE RIVERDALE
STORIES," ETC.
BOSTON
LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by
WILLIAM T. ADAMS,
In the Clerks Office of the District Court of the
District of Massachusetts.
COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY WILLIAM T. ADAMS.
All rights reserved.
MAKE OR BREAK.
TO
MY YOUNG FRIEND
KATE V. AUSTIN
This Book
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.
PREFACE.
"MAKE OR BREAK," is the fifth of the serial stories published in "OUR
BOYS AND GIRLS"--a magazine which has become so much the pet of the
author, that he never sits down to write a story for it without being
impressed by a very peculiar responsibility. Twenty thousand youthful
faces seem to surround him, crying out for something that will excite
their minds, and thrill their very souls, while a calmer, holier voice,
speaking in the tones of divine command, breathes gently forth, "Feed
my lambs."
The lambs will not eat dry husks; they loathe the tasteless morsel
which well-meaning sectarians offer them, and hunger for that which
will warm their hearts and stir their blood. The heart may be warmed,
and the blood may be stirred, without corrupting the moral nature. The
writer has endeavored to meet this demand in this way, and he is quite
sure that the patient, striving, toiling Leo, and the gentle,
self-sacrificing, and devoted Maggie, do nothing in the story which
will defile the mind or the heart of the young people. The Bible
teaches what they sought to practise. He is satisfied that none of his
readers will like Mr. Fitzherbert Wittleworth well enough to make him
their model.
The author is willing the story should pass for what it is worth; and
there is no danger that it will be over or undervalued, for the young
people are even more critical than their elders. But the favor already
bestowed upon it has added to the weight of the writer's obligation to
the juvenile reading public; and in giving them the story in its
present permanent form, he trusts that it will continue to be not only
a source of pleasure, but a stimulus to higher aims, and a more
resolute striving for what is worth having both in the moral and
material world.
WILLIAM T. ADAMS.
HARRISON SQUARE, MASS., July 28, 1868.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
MR. WITTLEWORTH GETS SHAVED 11
CHAPTER II.
BOY WANTED 22
CHAPTER III.
MR. CHECKYNSHAW IS VIOLENT 34
CHAPTER IV.
MR. CHECKYNSHAW RUSHES 46
CHAPTER V.
LEO MAGGIMORE 57
CHAPTER VI.
LEO'S WORKSHOP 69
CHAPTER VII.
MON PERE 81
CHAPTER VIII.
MAKE OR BREAK 94
CHAPTER IX.
MR. CHECKYNSHAW AND FAMILY 105
CHAPTER X.
THE WITTLEWORTH FAMILY 117
CHAPTER XI.
THE MOUSE BUSINESS 129
CHAPTER XII.
LEO'S WONDERFUL PERFORMERS 141
CHAPTER XIII.
WITTLEWORTH _VS._ CHECKYNSHAW 153
CHAPTER XIV.
MR. CHECKYNSHAW IS LIBERAL 166
CHAPTER XV.
A SUCCESS IN THE MOUSE BUSINESS 179
CHAPTER XVI.
THE LETTER FROM MARGUERITE 192
CHAPTER XVII.
THE LETTER FROM FRANCE 204
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE QUITCLAIM DEED 217
CHAPTER XIX.
FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD 229
CHAPTER XX.
AN AVALANCHE OF GOOD FORTUNE 241
CHAPTER XXI.
MR. WITTLEWORTH'S WRONGS 254
CHAPTER XXII.
THE TWO MARGUERITES 266
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE GOLD LOCKET 279
CHAPTER XXIV.
ME AND CHOATE 291
CHAPTER XXV.
THE ELEGANT YOUNG LADY 303
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE RICH MAN'S DAUGHTER 315
MAKE OR BREAK;
OR,
THE RICH MAN'S DAUGHTER.
CHAPTER I.
MR. WITTLEWORTH GETS SHAVED.
"Next gentleman!" said Andre Maggimore, one of the journeyman barbers
in the extensive shaving saloon of Cutts & Stropmore, which was
situated near the Plutonian temples of State Street, in the city of
Boston.
"Next gentleman!" repeated Andre, in tones as soft and feminine as
those of a woman, when no one responded to his summons.
"My turn?" asked a spare young man of sixteen, throwing down the Post,
with a languid air, and rising to his feet.
"Yes, sir," replied Andre, politely; and if the speaker had been out of
sight, one would have supposed it was a lady who spoke. "Have your hair
cut?"
"No; shave."
The barber seemed to be startled by the announcement, though there was
not the faintest smile on his face to discourage the candidate for
tonsorial honors. The young man looked important, threw his head back,
pursed up his lips, and felt of his chin, on which there was not the
slightest suspicion of a beard visible to the naked eye. Mr.
Fitzherbert Wittleworth would not have been willing to acknowledge that
he had not been shaved for three weeks; but no one could have
discovered the fact without the aid of a powerful microscope.
Mr. Wittleworth spread out his attenuated frame in the barber's chair,
and dropped his head back upon the rest. Andre looked as grave and
serious as though he had been called to operate upon the face of one of
the venerable and dignified bank presidents who frequented the shop. He
was a journeyman barber, and it was his business to shave any one who
sat down in his chair, whether the applicant had a beard or not. If
Andre's voice was soft and musical, his resemblance to the gentler sex
did not end there, for his hand was as silky and delicate, and his
touch as velvety, as though he had been bred in a boudoir.
He adjusted the napkin to the neck of the juvenile customer with the
nicest care, and then, from the force of habit, passed his downy hand
over the face upon which he was to operate, as if to determine whether
it was a hard or a tender skin. Several of the customers smiled and
coughed, and even the half-dozen journeymen were not unmoved by the
spectacle.
"What are you going to do, Fitz?" asked the occupant of the adjoining
chair, who had just straightened himself up to be "brushed off."
"I'm going to have a shave," answered Mr. Wittleworth, as confidently
as though the proceedings were entirely regular.
"What for?"
"To have my beard taken off, of course. What do you shave for?"
"Put on the cream, and let the cat lick it off."
"That's a venerable joke. I dare say the barber did not gap his razor
when he shaved you. I always feel better after I have been shaved,"
added Mr. Wittleworth, as Andre laid a brush full of lather upon his
smooth chin.
Those in the shop chuckled, and some of them were ill-mannered enough
to laugh aloud, at the conceit of the young man who thus announced to
the world that his beard had grown. Even the proprietors of the
extensive shaving saloon looked uncommonly good-natured, though it was
not prudent for them to rebuke the ambition of the prospective
customer.
Andre lathered the face of the juvenile with as much care as though it
had been that of the parsimonious broker at the corner, who shaved only
when his beard was an eighth of an inch in length. Not satisfied with
this preparatory step, he resorted to the process used for particularly
hard beards, of rubbing the lather in with a towel wet in hot water;
but Andre did not smile, or by word or deed indicate that all he was
doing was not absolutely necessary in order to give his customer a
clean and an easy shave. Then he stropped his razor with zealous
enthusiasm, making the shop ring with the melody of the thin steel, as
he whipped it back and forth on the long strip of soft leather, one end
of which was nailed to the case, and the other end held in his hand.
The music was doubtless sweet to the listening ears of Mr. Wittleworth,
if not as the prelude of an easy shave, at least as an assurance that
all the customary forms had been scrupulously complied with in his
individual case.
[Illustration: MR. WITTLEWORTH GETS SHAVED.--Page 14.]
Slapping the broad-bladed razor on his soft hand, the barber approached
the young man in the chair. With a graceful movement he brought the
instrument to bear gently on the face.
"Does it pull, Fitz?" asked the tormentor in the next chair.
"Of course not; Andre always gives a man an easy shave," replied Mr.
Wittleworth.
"Certainly; but some people have tough beards and tender faces."
"If your beard is as soft as your head, it won't hurt you to shave with
a handsaw," retorted Mr. Wittleworth.
The laugh was at the expense of the tormentor, and he retreated from
the shop in the "guffaw," and Fitz was permitted to finish his shave in
peace--in peace, at least, so far as this particular tormentor was
concerned, for a more formidable one assailed him before his departure.
Andre went over his face with the nicest care; then lathered it again,
and proceeded to give it the finishing touches. He was faithful to the
end, and gave the juvenile patron the benefit of the entire length and
breadth of his art, omitting nothing that could add dignity or
perfection to the operation. It was quite certain that, if there was
anything like an imperceptible down on his face at the commencement of
the process, there was nothing left of it at the end.
Mr. Wittleworth's hair was oiled, moistened with diluted Cologne water,
combed, brushed, parted, and tossed in wavy flakes over his head, and
was as fragrant, glossy, and unctuous as the skill of Andre could make
it.
"One feels more like a Christian after a clean shave," said Mr.
Wittleworth, as he rose from the chair, and passed his hand approvingly
over his polished chin. "Barbers, good barbers, do a missionary work in
the world."
"What are you doing here, Fitz?" demanded a stern-looking gentleman,
who had just entered the shop, and stepped up behind the juvenile
customer.
"I came in to get shaved," replied Mr. Wittleworth, abashed by the
harsh tones.
"Shaved!" exclaimed Mr. Checkynshaw, the stern-looking gentleman, well
known as the senior partner of the great banking house of Checkynshaw,
Hart, & Co. "Shaved!"
"Yes, sir; I came here to be shaved, and I have been shaved," replied
the young man, trying to assume an air of bravado, though he was
actually trembling in his boots before the lofty and dignified
personage who confronted and confounded him.
"Is this the way you waste your time and your money? I sent you to the
post-office, and you have been gone over half an hour."
"I had to wait for my turn," pleaded Mr. Wittleworth.
"When I send you to the post-office, you will not loiter away your time
in a barber's shop, you conceited puppy. I'll discharge you!"
"Discharge _me_!" exclaimed Mr. Wittleworth, stung by the epithet of
the banker. "I think not, sir."
The young gentleman placed his hat upon his head, canting it over on
one side, so as to give him a saucy and jaunty appearance. Mr.
Checkynshaw, whose clerk, or rather "boy," he was, had often scolded
him, and even abused him, in the private office of the banking-house,
but never before in a place so public as a barber's shop in 'Change
Street, and in 'change hours. He felt outraged by the assault; for Mr.
Wittleworth, as his employer had rather indelicately hinted, had a high
opinion of himself. He straightened himself up, and looked impudent--a
phase in his conduct which the banker had never before observed, and he
stood aghast at this indication of incipient rebellion.
"You think not, you puppy!" exclaimed the banker, stamping his feet
with rage.
"I think not! It wouldn't be a prudent step for you to take," answered
Mr. Wittleworth, stung again by the insulting appellations heaped upon
him. "I know rather too much about your affairs to be cast out so
thoughtlessly."
"I will discharge you this very day!" replied the banker, his teeth set
firmly together.
"I think you will find that the affairs of Messrs. Checkynshaw, Hart, &
Co. will not go on so smoothly without me as they do with me," added
Mr. Wittleworth, as he canted his hat over a little more on one side,
and pulled up his shirt collar.
"Without you!" gasped the banker, confounded by the assumption of his
employee.
"Perhaps you will find it so, after you have done your worst."
"Conceited puppy! I took you into my office out of charity! Go to your
place. Charity can do no more for you."
"If you can afford to discharge me, I can afford to be discharged,"
replied Mr. Wittleworth, as he stroked his chin, and walked out of the
shop.
"The young vagabond!" muttered Mr. Checkynshaw. "I took him to keep his
mother from starving. Andre," he added, imperiously.
The barber with the effeminate voice and the silky hands turned from
the customer he was shaving, and bowed politely to the magnate of the
house of Checkynshaw, Hart, & Co.
"Andre, my daughter Elinora goes to a juvenile party this evening, and
wishes you to dress her hair at four o'clock."
"Yes, sir; with Mr. Cutts's permission, I will attend her at that
hour."
Mr. Checkynshaw looked as though Mr. Cutts's permission was not at all
necessary when he desired anything; but Mr. Cutts did not venture to
interpose any obstacle to the wish of a person so influential as the
banker. Mr. Checkynshaw turned to leave, went as far as the door, and
then returned.
"Andre," he continued, "you spoke to me of a boy of yours."
"My adopted son, sir," replied the barber.
"I don't care whether he is your son, or your adopted son. What sort of
a boy is he?"
"He is a very good boy, sir," answered Andre.
"Can he read and write?"
"Very well indeed, sir. The master of his school says he will take the
medal at the close of the year."
"I shall discharge that puppy, and I want a good boy in his place. Send
him to me at half past two this afternoon."
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Checkynshaw. Perhaps I spoke too soon, sir; but
I did not want a place for him till next vacation."
"Send him up, and I will talk with him," said the banker, imperatively
and patronizingly, as he hurried out of the shop.
He was met at the door by a girl of fifteen, who modestly stepped out
of the way to let the magnate pass. She was dressed very plainly, but
very neatly, and in her hand she carried a tin pail. The loud talk of
the barber's shop politicians and the coarse jests of rude men ceased
as she walked behind the long line of chairs to that where Andre was at
work. She was rather tall for her age; her face was pretty, and her
form delicately moulded. She was all gentleness and grace, and rude men
were awed by her presence.
Andre smiled as sweetly as a woman when he saw her, and his eye
followed her as she went to the stove, and placed the pail by its side.
"Maggie, send Leo to me as soon as you go home," said he, in the
softest of his soft tones, as she left the shop.