Mark Mason's Victory: The Trials and Triumphs of a Telegraph Boy

"I have told you that I don't know where to get the money."

"And I suggested a plan."

"You suggested that I should appropriate some of the money I was given by my employer to deposit in the Park Bank."

"Hush!" said Schuyler apprehensively. "Don't blurt out secrets."

"Well, you hinted at some such thing."

"I don't care how you get the money. If you know what is best for yourself, you'll get it somehow and somewhere."

"I thought you were wealthy, Mr. Schuyler. I didn't think you would press me like this."

"I am wealthy, but as I told you I have met with some losses recently, or I would have given you more time on this debt."

"Suppose I can't pay you?"

"Then you will have to take the consequences."

"That means that you will go to my father?"

"Not alone that. I will let it be known everywhere that you have refused to pay a debt of honor and that will exclude you from the society of gentlemen."

Edgar was unprepared to go further, and he thought it time to obtain Mark's assistance.

"Let us go into the reading room," he said. "Perhaps we can settle the matter there."

"All right! I want to be easy with you, and I will agree to take off ten dollars if you will pay me the balance."

"I will see what I can do."

Edgar led the way into the reading room at the rear of the office. He saw Mark sitting on a chair at the opposite side of the room, and he led Schuyler up to it.

Schuyler was short-sighted, and did not make out Mark till Edgar said: "Mr. Schuyler, let me introduce you to my cousin, Mark Mason!"

"The telegraph boy!" ejaculated Schuyler, his face changing.

"I see you know me, Mr. Schuyler," said Mark. "My cousin tells me you want him to pay you seventy-five dollars."

"I don't know what you have to do with the matter," said Schuyler stiffly.

"Then I will tell you. You have imposed yourself upon Edgar as a respectable man of good social position while I know you to be an adventurer and a swindler."

"Do you mean to insult me?" demanded Schuyler looking around the room nervously.

"I mean to protect my cousin. Give him the memorandums you have, or tear them up and cease to persecute him, or I will call in a policeman."

Hamilton Schuyler looked furious, but he knew Mark and his resolute spirit, and felt afraid he would do as he threatened.

"You cub!" he hissed. "You are always interfering with me."

He turned upon his heel and left the reading room.

"He won't trouble you any more, Edgar," said Mark.

"How can I thank you, Mark?" said Edgar gratefully. "You have got me out of a bad scrape. That fellow has drained me of every cent. I had to borrow five dollars of a clerk in the office to satisfy him, and if I pay it I shall have nothing to spend for a week."

"Then let me be your banker, Edgar," said Mark as he drew a five-dollar note from his pocket and offered it to his cousin.

"Can you spare this, Mark?" asked Edgar in surprise and relief.

"Yes."

"I don't know when I can repay you."

"Take your own time. Pay a dollar a week if you like."

"Won't you call round at the house?" asked Edgar.

"Thank you, not this evening. I hope the time will come when we can meet each other often."

"Mark is a good fellow," thought Edgar as he walked up Fifth Avenue. "I thought he was poor, but he seems to be better off than I am."

CHAPTER XXXVII

SOLON TALBOT'S PLANS

Solon Talbot was much elated by the great rise in the stock of the Golden Hope Mine. At two hundred and fifty dollars each, the four hundred shares held by his father-in-law's estate would bring one hundred thousand dollars. While only half of this rightfully belonged to him, he felt that he was safe in appropriating the whole, as he imagined that Mark and his mother had no clew to its real ownership.

He had an offer from Crane & Lawton of a hundred thousand for the stock, and this he could obtain at any time. He had not thus far been able to obtain Mrs. Mason's signature to a release, but this he reflected was only a matter of form and need not be regarded.

Mr. Talbot lived in a flat, but desired to own a house. With the capital at his command when the mining stock was disposed of, he felt sure that he could realize a large income in Wall Street by dealings in the stock market. Somehow he seemed to think that the great rise in Golden Hope stock reflected credit on his sagacity.

He went to the office of a prominent real estate broker and examined his list of houses for sale. One especially pleased him – a house on West Forty-Seventh street in excellent condition, which he could buy for forty-five thousand dollars.

"You can pay twenty thousand dollars down," said the broker, "and the balance can stand on mortgage at five per cent."

"I shall probably pay cash down for the whole," responded Mr. Talbot, with the air of a capitalist.

"Very well Mr. Talbot," said the broker respectfully, "that will of course be satisfactory. So would the other arrangement."

"I will decide in a day or two and let you know," added Talbot.

When he went home he could not help boasting a little of his proposed purchased.

"Mary," he said, "what should you say if I bought a house?"

"In Brooklyn?"