Jr. Horatio Alger

“ ADRIFT IN NEW YORK.
Chapter I.
The Missing Heir.
“Uncle, you are not looking well to-night.”
“I’m not well, Florence. I sometimes doubt if I shall ever be any better.”
“Surely, uncle, you cannot mean——”
“Yes, my child, I have reason to believe that I am nearing the end.”
“I cannot bear to hear you speak so, uncle,” said Florence Linden, in irrepressible agitation. “You are not an old man. You are but fifty-four.”
“True, Florence, but it is not years only that make a man old. Two great sorrows have embittered my life. ”

“ Leighton,” answered Florence, easily, for she felt more at home in a house like this than in the tenement.
“Have you taught before?”
“Very little,” answered Florence, smiling to herself, as she wondered what Mrs. Leighton would say if she could see Dodger, the only pupil she ever had. “However, I like teaching, and I like children.”
“Pardon me, but you don’t look like a governess, Miss——”
“Linden,” suggested Florence, filling out the sentence. “Do governesses have a peculiar look?”
“I mean as to dress. You are more expensively dressed than the average governess can afford.” ”

“ You will meet others who will be kinder to you than I have been——”
“I can never love another. My heart is broken. Farewell, cruel girl. When you read the papers tomorrow morning, think of the unhappy Percy de Brabazon!”
Mr. de Brabazon folded his arms gloomily, and stalked out of the room.
“If my position were not so sad, I should be tempted to smile,” said Florence. “Mr. de Brabazon will not do this thing. His emotions are as strong as those of a butterfly.” ”

“ Florence.
Florence Linden sat in the library the following evening in an attitude of depression. Her eyelids were swollen, and it was evident she had been weeping. During the day she had had an interview with her uncle, in which he harshly insisted upon her yielding to his wishes, and marrying her cousin, Curtis.
“But, uncle,” she objected, “I do not love him.”
“Marry him, and love will come.”
“Never!” she said, vehemently.
“You speak confidently, miss,” said Mr. Linden, with irritation.
“Listen, Uncle John. It is not alone that I do not love him. I dislike him—I loathe—him.” ”

“ And who is this?” he asked, fixing his eyes on Dodger, who stood shyly in the doorway.
“I’ll tell you, sir,” said Tim Bolton. “That is your own son, whom I stole away from you when he was a kid, being hired to do it by Curtis Waring.”
“It’s a lie,” said Curtis, hoarsely.
“Come to me, my boy,” said Mr. Linden, with a glad light in his eyes.
“At last Heaven has heard my prayers,” he ejaculated. “We will never be separated. I was ready to die, but now I hope to live for many years. I feel that I have a new lease of life.” ”

“ It was necessarily a slow process, but she began to find after a time that a gradual change was coming over him.
“I want you to grow up a gentleman, Dodger,” she said to him one day.
“I’m too rough for that, Florence. I’m only an ignorant street boy.”
“You are not going to be an ignorant street boy all your life. I don’t see why you should not grow up a polished gentleman.”
“I shall never be like that de Brabazon young man,” said he.
“No, Dodger; I don’t think you will,” said Florence, laughing. “I don’t want you to become effeminate nor a dude. ”

“ O’Keefe?” returned Florence.
“Try not to think of your wicked cousin, my dear.”
“It isn’t of him that I think—it is of my uncle. How could he be so cruel, and turn against me after years of kindness?”
“It’s that wicked Curtis that is settin’ him against you, take my word for it, Miss Florence. Shure, he must be wake-minded to let such a spalpeen set him against a swate young leddy like you.”
“He is weak in body, not in mind, Mrs. O’Keefe. You are right in thinking that it is Curtis that is the cause of my misfortune.”
“Your uncle will come to his right mind some day, never fear! ”

“ Waring and her child would not be very far from five hundred dollars, and where to obtain this money was a problem.
Randolph Leslie probably had that sum, but Dodger could not in conscience ask him to lend it, being unable to furnish adequate security, or to insure repayment.
“If I could only find a nugget,” thought Dodger, knitting his brows, “everything would be easy.” But nuggets are rare enough in the gold fields, and still rarer in city streets.
He who trusts wholly to luck trusts to a will-o’-the-wisp, and is about as sure of success as one who owns a castle in Spain. ”

“ She had her choice to marry Curtis or to leave the house, and forfeit all chance of the estate. She chose to leave the house.”
“She ought to know that he has no right to marry,” said the poor woman, who, not understanding the dislike of Florence for the man whom she herself loved, feared that she might yet be induced to marry him.
“She ought to know, and her uncle ought to know,” said Dodger. “Mrs. Waring, I can’t see my way clear yet. If I were in New York I would know just what to do. Will you agree to stand by me, and help me?” ”

“ In a city like New York, where many of the streets are tolerably well filled even at midnight, people get in the way of sitting up much later than in the country, and Dodger was no exception to this rule.
Yet here he was ready to drop off to sleep before eight o’clock. To him it was a mystery, for he did not know that the cup of tea which he had drunk at supper had been drugged by direction of Curtis Waring, with an ulterior purpose, which will soon appear.
“I may as well lie down, as there is nothing else to do,” thought Dodger. “There isn’t much fun sitting in the dark. ”

“ I wonder if people ever get seasick in dreams?”
There was another pitch, and Dodger instinctively clung to the edge of his berth, to save himself from being thrown out.
“Let me see,” he said, trying to collect his scattered recollection. “I went to sleep in a house uptown—a house to which Curtis Waring lured me, and then made me a prisoner. The house was somewhere near One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street. Now it seems as if I was on board a ship. How could I get here? I wish somebody would come in that I could ask.” ”

“ I shall not give him up to any one else.”
“So far as Florence is concerned—she is the cousin—she has no wish to deprive you of him. But is it possible that you are attached to a man who has treated you so meanly?” asked Dodger, in surprise.
“There was a time when he treated me well, when he appeared to love me,” was the murmured reply. “I cannot forget that he is the father of my child.”
Dodger did not understand the nature of women or the mysteries of the female heart, and he evidently thought this poor woman very foolish to cling with such pertinacity to a man like Curtis Waring. ”

“ I have pleaded with my uncle in your behalf, but in vain.”
Florence was too clear-sighted not to penetrate his falsehood.
“If my uncle’s heart is hardened against me,” she said, “I shall be too wise to turn to you. I am to understand, then, that my choice lies between poverty and a union with you?”
“You have stated it correctly, Florence.”
“Then,” said Florence, arising, “I will not hesitate. I shrink from poverty, for I have been reared in luxury, but I will sooner live in a hovel—”
“Or a tenement house,” interjected Curtis, with a sneer. ”

“ If he can keep Florence and her uncle apart for a few months, Mr. Linden will die, and he will inherit the whole estate. What is this will he speaks of in the letter you showed me?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Whatever the provisions are, it is evident that he thinks it important to get it into his possession. If favorable to him, he will keep it carefully. If unfavorable, I think a man like him would not hesitate to suppress it.”
“No doubt you are right, sir. I don’t know much about wills,” said Dodger.
“No; I suppose not. You never made any, I suppose,” remarked the reporter, with a smile. ”

“ O’Keefe a nice lady?”
“She ain’t a lady at all,” answered Dodger, bluntly. “She keeps an apple-stand near the corner of Bowery and Grand Street; but she’s a good, respectable woman, and she’s good-hearted. She’ll be kind to you, and try to make things pleasant; but if you ain’t satisfied——”
“It will do for the present. Kindness is what I need, driven as I am from the home of my childhood. But you, Dodger, where do you live?”
“I’m goin’ to take a small room in the same house, Miss Florence.” ”

“ Florence left the house indignant and mortified. It was something new to her to be regarded as a social inferior, and she felt sure that there were many in Mrs. Leighton’s position who would have seen no harm in her behavior on the previous evening.
Four days afterward, when Florence entered the Madison Avenue car to ride downtown, she had scarcely reached her seat when an eager voice addressed her:
“Miss Linden, how fortunate I am in meeting you!”
Florence looked up and saw Mr. de Brabazon sitting nearly opposite her. ”

“ Florence had very little idea of what she was undertaking.
She was an expert needlewoman, and proved adequate to the work, but with her utmust industry she could only make one vest in a day, and that would barely pay her rent.
True, she had some money laid aside on which she could draw, but that would soon be expended, and then what was to become of her?
“Shure, I won’t let you starve, Florence,” said the warm-hearted apple-woman.
“But, Mrs. O’Keefe, I can’t consent to live on you.”
“And why not? I’m well and strong, and I’m makin’ more money than I nade.” ”

“ The time might come when Dodger, by his own efforts, could accumulate the needed sum, but it would require a year at least, and in that time Mr. Linden would probably be dead.
Absorbed and disturbed by these reflections, Dodger walked slowly through the darkened streets till he heard a stifled cry, and looking up, beheld a sight that startled him.
On the sidewalk lay the prostrate figure of a man. Over him, bludgeon in hand, bent a ruffian, whose purpose was only too clearly evident. ”

“ I never heard of him until I entered his house,” and Dodger flushed as he thought that his entrance into the mansion on Madison Avenue had been as a burglar.
“It seems to me that he knows more about you than you do about him. It also seems to me that he is anxious to get you out of New York, the farther the better.”
“But what harm could I do him in New York?” asked Dodger, puzzled.
“That is the question which I cannot answer. You say he was instrumental in getting his Cousin Florence out of the house?”
“Yes; he wanted to marry her.” ”

“ Bolton began, but Curtis interrupted him.
“The boy is safe—I will tell you that much,” he said; “but for reasons which you can guess, I think it better that he should be out of New York. When the proper time comes, and all is safe, he may come back, but not in time to help you in your cunning plans, Mr. Tim Bolton.”
“Then, I suppose,” said Bolton, assuming an air of mortification and discomfiture, “it is no use for me to remain here any longer.”
“You are quite right. I wish you a pleasant journey home. Give my love to Florence when you see her.”
“That man is a fiend!” ”

“ I shall make something of you.”
“I learn faster with you than with Florence,” said Dodger.
“Probably she would succeed better with girls, but I hold that a male teacher is better for boys. How long are you willing to study every day?”
“As long as you think best.”
“Then we will say from two to three hours. I think you have talent for arithmetic. I don’t expect to make you fit for a bookkeeper, but I hope to make you equal to most office boys by the time we reach San Francisco. What do you intend to do in California?” ”

“ Feeling that his end is near, he wishes to leave you in charge of a protector.”
“I can protect myself,” said Florence, proudly.
“You think so. You do not consider the hapless lot of a penniless girl in a cold and selfish world.”
“Penniless?” repeated Florence, in an accent of surprise.
“Yes, penniless. Our uncle’s bequest to you is conditional upon your acceptance of my hand.”
“Has he said this?” asked Florence, sinking into an armchair, with a helpless look.
“He has told me so more than once,” returned Curtis, smoothly. “You don’t know how near to his heart this marriage is. ”