A Boy's Fortune; Or, The Strange Adventures of Ben BakerAlger, Horatio, Jr.
General
A Boy's Fortune; Or, The Strange Adventures of Ben Baker
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
Adventure and adventurers -- Juvenile fiction; Fortune -- Juvenile fiction
I do not propose to describe Ben's happy meeting with his mother.
Mrs. Baker was grieved to hear of her brother's treachery, but it
was a relief to her to think that he had nothing to do with her
husband's death. As we know, he was directly responsible for it, but
the knowledge of this was confined to his own breast. Even the Cuban
never suspected what had brought on the attack that terminated the
poor doctor's life.
"Now, Ben, what career do you select?" asked his guardian.
Ben took a week to consider. He then decided not to go into
business, but to obtain a liberal education, and study law. He and
his mother removed to Cambridge, where he completed his preparatory
studies, and entered Harvard College. He is now a young lawyer,
and has commenced the practice of his profession under flattering
auspices.
Clarence Plantagenet, on the other hand, is a young man about town,
and his father cannot induce him to enter upon any business. He has
professed his willingness to become a broker, if his father will
purchase him a seat at the Stock Board, but Mr. Walton wisely thinks
it will be cheaper to give him a liberal income than give him the
chance of squandering a fortune in stocks.
We must not forget the Beauforts. They removed to a fashionable
locality, and purchasing a house, furnished it with elegance and
taste. It is surprising how many people found them out in their days
of prosperity who had ignored them before. Even Mrs. Tilton essayed
to apologize for her outrageous treatment, and tried to ingratiate
herself with Rose, but the latter treated her with such distant
civility that she gave up the attempt. In less than a year Rose
Beaufort became Mrs. Clinton Randall, and her star rose still higher.
There is one person who never will forgive her for her good fortune,
and that is Miss Arethusa Jayne, who had strongly hoped to secure
the hand of Clinton Randall for herself. No one would have been more
amazed than Randall himself, for he was happily unconscious of Miss
Jayne's admiration for him.
Ben has not forgotten his early friends. Hugh Manton, the reporter,
by his help has secured an interest in a flourishing daily paper in
an inland city, and is earning a liberal income.
Major Grafton is earning a precarious living at European spas and
gambling resorts, and is beginning to show the marks of age. Filippo
Novarro has established himself as a permanent resident of the
United States, and spends much of his time with Ben and his mother.
And now, with all our characters satisfactorily disposed of, the
good rewarded, and the bad punished, we bid the reader farewell and
ring down the curtain.
HORATIO ALGER, JR.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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