Adventures of a Telegraph Boy or 'Number 91'

“No, miss,” answered Paul, who was instantly impressed in favor of the pretty girl whose acquaintance he was just making.

“I’m not easily frightened,” he answered.

“Then you’re different from mamma and me. We are regular scarecrows – no, that isn’t the word. I mean we are regular cowards. Still, with a brave and strong man in the house,” she added, with an arch smile, “we shall feel safe.”

“I hope you will be,” said Paul

“It is still early,” said Mrs. Cunningham. “Have you had your supper, Paul?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“We shall not retire before ten – Jennie, you can entertain this young gentleman, if you like.”

“All right, mamma – if I can – that is, if he isn’t hard to entertain. Do you play dominoes, Paul?”

“Yes, miss.”

“O, don’t call me miss – I don’t mind your calling me Jennie.”

The two sat down to a game of dominoes, and were soon on the friendliest possible terms.

After a while, seeing a piano in the room, Paul asked the young lady if she played.

“Yes; would you like to hear me?”

“If you please.”

After three or four pieces, she asked – “Don’t you sing?”

“Not much,” answered Paul, bashfully.

“Sing me something, won’t you?”

Paul blushed, and tried to excuse himself.

“I don’t sing any but common songs,” he said.

“That’s what I want to hear.”

After a while Paul mustered courage enough to sing “Baby Mine,” and another song which he had heard at Harry Miner’s.

They were not classical, but the young lady seemed to enjoy them immensely. They were quite unlike what she had been accustomed to hear, and perhaps for that reason she enjoyed them the more.

“I think you sing splendidly,” she said.

Of course Paul blushed, and put in a modest disclaimer. Still he felt pleased, and decided that Jennie Cunningham was the nicest girl he had ever met.

“But what would she say,” he thought, “if she could see the miserable place I live in?” and the perspiration gathered on his face at the mere thought.

At ten o’clock Mrs. Cunningham suggested that it was time to go to bed.

“Paul, you will sleep in a little bedroom adjoining the library,” she said.

“All right, ma’am.”

“Come with me and I will show you your bedroom.”

It was a pleasant room, though small, and seemed to Paul the height of luxury.

“Shall I leave with you my husband’s revolver?” asked the lady.

“Yes, ma’am, I would like it.”

“Do you understand the use of revolvers?”

“Yes; I have practiced some with them in a shooting gallery.”

“I hope there will be no occasion to use it. I don’t think there will. But it is best to be prepared.”

Paul threw himself on the bed in his uniform in order to be better prepared to meet any midnight intruder.

“It won’t do to sleep too sound,” he thought, “or the house might be robbed without my knowing it.”

He was soon fast asleep. It might have been because he had the matter on his mind that about midnight he woke up. A faint light had been left burning in the chandelier in the library. Was it imagination on Paul’s part that he thought he heard a noise in the adjoining room? Instantly he was on the alert.

“It may be a burglar!” he thought, with a thrill of excitement.

He got up softly, reached for the revolver, and with a stealthy step advanced to the door that opened into the library.

What he saw was certainly startling.

A man, tall and broad shouldered, was on his knees before the safe, preparing to open it.

“What are you doing there?” demanded the telegraph boy, firmly.

The man sprang to his feet, and confronted Paul standing with a revolver in his hand pointed in his direction.

“O, it’s a kid!” he said, contemptuously.

“What are you doing there?” repeated Paul.

“None of yer business! Go back to bed!”

“Leave this house or I fire!”

The man thought of springing upon the boy, but there was something in his firm tone that made him think it best to parley. A revolver, even in a boy’s hand, might prove formidable.

“Go to bed, or I’ll kill you!” said the burglar, with an ugly frown.