"No business of yours. If you don't let Tommy come with me, I will see Mr. Smithers, and upset the whole caboodle. Don't you forget it." "You want to make him as bad as yourself, I know you do," she said, impetuously, "and I will not let him go." "All right. I'll stay here till Smithers comes back from the dry-goods store where he is employed, and the chances are that he will kick the pair of you out when he hears what I have to say." "Is this manly or just, Thomas?" she asked. "Neither one nor the other; but I have to do something in New York this time, or I shall be sent up to the island for the winter," replied Thompson, looking piercingly at her with his one eye. "Take your choice." "Come here, Tommy," said his mother. "What is it, mamma?" he asked, taking her hand tenderly. "Will you go with your father?" "Yes, to save you, mamma," answered Tommy. "Then go, and God be with you," she said, and rising, went to a handsome bureau, which she opened with a key. Taking a roll of bills and some jewelry from a secret drawer, she handed them to the stranger, adding: "They are all I have." The man's eyes gloated over the plunder which he counted, exclaiming: "Twenty dollars, three rings, a bracelet and a pair of diamond rings. Little enough, but I will make it do." Covering her face with her hands, the weak-minded and unfortunate woman shed an abundance of tears. "Come on," said Thompson to Tommy; "you're mine now. D'ye hear--or do you want a gentle reminder from the toe of my boot?" "You needn't kick me," replied Tommy. "What I say I never go back on." Bestowing an affectionate look on his mother, he followed the stranger from the house, and in silence they made their way to the ferry, by means of which they crossed over to New York. Thompson took him to a house in Dey Street, where he boarded, and when they were alone in a room, he lighted his pipe, and began to talk. "How do you suppose I get my living, sonny?" he inquired. "Best way you know how, I guess," answered Tommy. "Precisely. Sometimes I am a gambler, at others a thief, now and then a monte man; but here, where I am not known by the police, I mean to work the confidence game." "How's that done?" asked Tommy. "It's as simple as playing policy. We'll go out presently and look for a victim. I can always tell a countryman. When I point him out to you, it will be your job to go up to him and say: "How are you, Mr. Jennings?" "But suppose his name isn't Jennings?" "Of course it isn't," replied Thompson, "and he'll say: 'My name is not that, you've made a mistake.' Then you say: 'Didn't my father work for yours in Buffalo,' and he'll most likely answer by telling his real name and address, after which you beg his pardon, and fall back to tell me who he is." "What then?"