Adventure stories; Dime novels; Impostors and imposture -- Fiction; Love stories
He borrowed a hundred dollars from his Cousin Lester and suddenly
disappeared. When he was next heard from he blossomed out, astonishing
all New York as the handsomest society actor who had ever graced the
metropolitan boards, and caused a furore.
There was another great difference between the two cousins, and that was
a heart; just one of them possessed it, and that one was Lester
Armstrong.
On this particular afternoon Kendale had lain in wait for his cousin at
the entrance of Marsh & Co.'s to waylay him when he came from the
office. He must see him, he told himself, and Lester must let him have
another loan.
Lester Armstrong was glad from the bottom of his true, honest heart to
see him, but his brow clouded over with a troubled expression when he
learned that he wanted to borrow five hundred dollars. That amount
seemed small, indeed, to the lordly Kendale, but to Lester it meant
months of toil and rigid self-denial.
"Come into the café, and while we lunch I will explain to you why I must
have it, old fellow," said Kendale, always ready with some plausible
story on his glib tongue.
"Haven't time now," declared Armstrong. "I must catch the five-twenty
train from the Grand Central Depot; haven't a moment to lose. I will be
back on the nine o'clock train. If you will come over to my lodging
house then I'll talk with you. I cannot let you have the sum you want.
I'll tell you why then, and you will readily understand my position. Ah,
this is your corner. We part here. Wish me luck on the trip I am about
to take, for I never had more need for your good wishes."
"You are not going off to be married, I hope?" exclaimed Kendale in the
greatest of astonishment.
A light-hearted, happy, ringing laugh broke from Armstrong's mustached
lips, the color rushed into his face, and his brown eyes twinkled
merrily.
"There's the dearest little girl in all the world in the case," he
admitted, "but I haven't time to tell you about it now. I'll see you
later."
With this remark he plunged forward into the gathering gloom, leaving
Clinton Kendale standing motionless gazing after him in the greatest
surprise. But the cold was too intense for him to remain there but an
instant; then wheeling about, he hastily struck into a side street,
muttering between his teeth:
"He must let me have that five hundred dollars, or I am ruined. I must
have it from him by fair means or foul, ere the light of another day
dawns. I've borrowed a cool two thousand from him in four months. I
wonder how much more he has laid by? I must have that five hundred, no
matter what I have to resort to to get it, that's all there is about it.
I am desperate to-night, and a person in my terrible fix fears neither
God nor man."
Meanwhile Lester Armstrong pushed rapidly onward, scarcely heeding the
bitter cold and terrible, raging storm, for his heart was in a glow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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