Adventures of a Telegraph Boy; or, "Number 91"Alger, Horatio, Jr.
General
Adventures of a Telegraph Boy; or, "Number 91"
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
New York (N.Y.) -- Juvenile fiction; Orphans -- Juvenile fiction; Telegraph -- Employees -- Juvenile fiction
So the time passed till Mr. Cunningham returned. His wife informed him
briefly of what had occurred. They both entered the room together. He
was a man of middle age, a very pleasant and easy mannered gentleman.
“Are you the boy who drove away the burglar?” he asked, with a smile.
“Yes, sir, I believe so,” answered Paul.
“Then let me add my thanks to those of my wife. You have done us a
great service.”
“I am very glad to have had the chance,” said Paul.
“If you will come to my office tomorrow morning,” continued Mr.
Cunningham, “I will thank you in a more effective way. Come at ten
o’clock. As you may find it difficult to leave the office otherwise,
tell the superintendent that I have an errand for you.”
“Very well, sir.”
“Here is my business card.”
Paid took the card and rose to go.
“Mamma,” said Jennie, “can’t you invite Paul to call and see us
sometimes?”
“Certainly,” said the lady, smiling. “After what he has done he ought
to have the freedom of the house. We shall be glad to see you as a
visitor, Paul,” she said, kindly.
Paul left the house in a flutter of pleasant excitement. He was quite
determined to avail himself of an invitation so agreeable.
He crossed over to Third Avenue, and returned by the elevated railway
to the home of old Jerry.
CHAPTER VIII. PAUL MOVES TO LUDLOW STREET.
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?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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