Adventures of a Telegraph Boy or 'Number 91'

“Yes; and now what word from my father? Where can I find him?”

“He does not seem willing to see you,” answered Paul.

James Barclay frowned angrily.

“I believe you’re doing this, you young rascal, keeping me and the old man apart, so you can get hold of his money yourself.”

“You are welcome to think what you like, Mr. Barclay,” said Paul, with spirit. “Good morning!”

“Curse the kid!” muttered Barclay, following the telegraph boy with a vindictive glance.

“That’s what I say, too, boss!”

Barclay turned quickly, and found the speaker to be a bootblack, a boy about Paul’s size. It was Tom Rafferty, a boy introduced in the first chapter, with whose attempted imposition upon a smaller boy in the same line of business Paul had forcibly interfered.

“So you know the kid?” he said, inquiringly.

“I’d ought to,” answered Tom. “Shine yer boots, boss?”

“Yes, I’ll have a shine,” answered Barclay, thinking he might make this boy of service.

“So you don’t like Number 91?”

“No, I don’t,” was the emphatic reply.

“What’s the matter with him?”

“He thinks himself above me, jest because he is a telegraph boy, and I am a bootblack.”

“Have you known him long?”

“Ever since he was so high,” said Tom, indicating the height of a boy of six.

“Do you know the old man he lives with?”

“Know old Jerry? Of course I do. Used to live in the same house, when dad was livin’.”

“So the boy has always lived with him?”

“Ever since I knowed him.”

“Humph! Where do they live now?”

“Round in Pearl Street.”

“No, they don’t. They’ve moved.”

“I didn’t know it. Must ’ave moved lately.”

“Yes, it was. Now, boy – what’s your name?”

“Tom Rafferty.”

“Then, Tom, would you like a job?”

“Wouldn’t I!”

“I want to find out where the boy and the old man live. I’ve got some business with the old man, but he don’t want to see me.”

“Wouldn’t Paul tell you?”

“No.”

“What’s it worth, boss?” asked Tom, with an eye to business.

“It depends on how soon you can find out. How can you find out?”

“I’ll foller Paul when he goes home from the office.”

“That’ll do. Do you think you can find out for me tonight, so as to let me know tomorrow morning?”

“I reckon I can, boss.”

“Meet me here tomorrow morning, and tell me where they live, and I’ll give you a dollar.”

Tom had not been expecting more than a quarter, and was very well pleased with Barclay’s liberality.

“I’ll do it, boss!” he said, striking the box, to indicate that the shine was completed. Apart from the money that was promised him, he was glad to thwart Paul, who didn’t want his customer to ascertain the address.

“I’ll meet you here about nine o’clock, and have another shine,” said Barclay, as he slipped ten cents – double pay – into Tom’s hand.

“You’ll find me on hand, and right side up with care,” said Tom. “You’re a gentleman I like to fall in with.”

James Barclay walked away, well pleased with the arrangement he had made.

“There’s more’n one way of finding out what you want to know,” he soliloquized. “The old man ain’t sharp, or else he thinks I ain’t. I’ll give him a call when that troublesome telegraph boy is about his business. Me and the old man will have considerable business to discuss. He’s going to give me a share of his money, or I’ll shake the life out of him. It ain’t pleasant to discipline your dad, but when he don’t treat you like he ought, it’s the only way.”

Tom Rafferty, towards the close of the afternoon, loitered in the neighborhood of the telegraph office where Paul was employed. When Number 91 left the office and betook himself homeward, he did not notice that he was followed at the distance of a few rods by Tom Rafferty.

But such was the case.

CHAPTER XVIII

JAMES BARCLAY OBTAINS A CLEW

No commission could have been more congenial to Tom Rafferty than to track Paul and the miser. He had never liked Paul, whom he charged with putting on airs, because he was better dressed than himself, but his aversion had deepened to hatred since the telegraph boy’s forcible interference in favor of little Jack. He saw a way now to annoy Paul, for he was satisfied that James Barclay was no friend of Jerry or Number 91.

He hovered round the telegraph office till Paul was dismissed, and then, unobserved by him, sauntered along behind him. At Grand Street, Paul crossed Broadway and proceeded eastward to where Ludlow Street opens out of it, and proceeded in a southerly direction for about five minutes. Had he turned back, he might have suspected Tom’s motive in following him, but he was absorbed in his own thoughts, and never looked behind him. At length he entered an open doorway and went upstairs. Tom carefully noted the number, and then, with a look of triumph, went back to his usual lounging place at the City Hall Park.