CHAPTER X.

ROBERT GETS A SITUATION.

Robert Burns and his new friend made their way into the business part of the city. They entered a large warehouse, and passed through it into a back room—found a young man writing notes at one of the desks. He looked up, saw the two boys, and suspended his writing long enough to question them with his eyes.

“This is a boy that I want Mr. Gould to engage, sir. Where is the old gentleman?” said the newsboy, designating Robert by a wave of his not over-clean hand. “True as steel, sir, and honest as a morning paper, sir. Where’s the boss?—perhaps you don’t know,” he added, eyeing an antique seal ring on the gentleman’s white hand. “New feller in these premises, any way. I never see you afore.”

The young man went on with his writing, and took no apparent heed of this rather elaborate address. His pen ran over a sheet of note-paper with a quick and noiseless motion, that filled the newsboy with admiring astonishment. Then the note was folded, and something placed with it in the long, narrow envelope, which rustled under the touch of those fingers, silkily, like a bank-note. Then a wax taper, coiled up like a garter-snake, was lighted, a drop of pale green wax fell from it to the note; and while the young man stamped the seal with his antique ring, he seemed to become suddenly conscious that the boys were gazing on him with no common curiosity.

“Well,” he said, smiling down upon the seal as he examined the impression he had made, “what is it? Did you want something, boys?”

“Yes, sir, that is just it. We want to see the old boss!”

“The old what?” cried the young gentleman, with a look of comic astonishment—“the old what?”

“The boss, sir; the old gentleman who runs this ere machine!”

“Oh! you mean the governor. Too late; sailed for Europe yesterday.”

“But he told me I might look up a boy for him the very last time I brought the weeklies here; and I’ve found just the chap.”

“Oh! the errand-boy. So the governor commissioned you—just like him. We do want a handy lad, I think. I say, Smith.”

Smith came in from a little den of a room at the left, with a pen behind his ear.

“Did you call, sir?”

“Did the governor say any thing about engaging a boy?”

“Yes, sir. He was particularly anxious to get a good one, smart and honest.”

“With all my heart, if he can find the paragon. Well, what do you think of that little fellow?” The young man pointed his pen carelessly at Robert without troubling himself to look that way.

Smith looked at the boy keenly, who blushed crimson under his gaze.

“He seems modest, at least, and looks intelligent,” was the kind answer.

“Then you like him? Come here, sir, and answer me a few questions.”

Robert moved up to the desk, and lifted his honest eyes to the young man’s face.

“How old are you, my fine fellow?”

“Twelve, sir, and going on thirteen.”

“Rather young, isn’t he?” said the gentleman, appealing to Smith.

“That will not matter so much, Mr. Gould. He seems healthy, and is intelligent.”

“You like him, then?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Robert, with tears in his eyes. “I’m much obliged, and—and——”

“That will do—take him on, Smith; but stay a minute. Are you acquainted with the city?”

“Pretty well, sir.”

“Can you read writing?”

“Oh, yes!”

“And write yourself?”

“Yes, I can write.”

“See if you can read that.”

Gould handed the note he had just directed, and Robert read the address.

“J. Ward, Girard House.”

“That will do. Now, your first duty will be to carry that note.”

“I am ready, sir.”

“Of course he’s ready,” cried the newsboy, rejoicing over his friend’s success; “but hadn’t you better do things a little ship-shape? About the wages, now. This young gentleman has got a mother——”

“Grandmother,” whispered Robert.

“Just so. A grandmother and sister to support; and money is money to him.”

Gould laughed.

“How much did we give the last fellow?” he said, addressing Smith in careless good humor.

“Three dollars a week.”

“Give this one four. I’ll be responsible to the governor. With an old grandmother, and all that sort of thing, it won’t be too much.”

“Oh, sir! I am so glad—so very, very glad!” cried Robert, crushing his hat between both hands in a paroxysm of grateful feelings. “I wish you could see her; she would know how to thank you, I don’t.”

“He’s young and green—don’t mind him,” cut in the newsboy, drawing the sleeve of his jacket across his eyes. “Consarn the dust, how it blinds a fellow! By-and-by he’ll take things like a man.”

“I only wish I was a man; oh, sir! how I would work for you.”

Gould got up from his seat and laid his white hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“Boy! boy! I would be a child again, could that give me back the feeling which fills those eyes with tears. Oh, Smith! how much we men lose in hardening ourselves. It is only the pure and good who can be really grateful. Heavens! how I envy this boy!”

“Me, sir?” said Robert; “envy me. But then it is something to earn so much money; and more yet, to know that your father died for his country, fighting in the front ranks. I’m all they have to depend on, sir. You haven’t any idea how rich this four dollars a week will make us. But I’ll earn it! I’ll earn it—see if I don’t!”

“Of course you will!” exclaimed the newsboy, who was getting rather tired of the scene. “But here comes another gentleman—hadn’t we better make ourselves scarce till to-morrow?”

As the lad spoke, a strange gentleman came into the counting-room, and shook hands with Gould.

“Well, I’ve been on the war-track, with some success, too,” he said eagerly. “Saw her going into that house——”

“What house, Ward? What house?”

“Why——” here Ward broke off, and took young Gould aside, to whom he spoke in a low, eager voice for some minutes. The young man listened with a little impatience; and more than once his face flushed angrily. At last he came away from the window, where they had been conversing, with a sparkle of indignation in his fine eyes.

“Take no unworthy means,” he said; “I will neither sanction or take advantage of any thing forced or dishonorable.”

Ward laughed.

“What has come over you?” he said. “Capricious as ever; carried off by some other pretty face, I dare say?”

“No, there you mistake.”

“Well, well! you will join us to-night?”

“No; I promised my uncle to give all that sort of thing up.”

“You did?”

“Yes; God bless the dear old fellow! He came down so handsomely—without a word, too; asked no promise—found no fault.”

“But you made a promise and a very silly one.”

“Possibly—time will show; at least I will be neither false nor ungrateful, if I can help it.”

Here Ward’s eyes fell upon the note, with its dainty seal—and he laughed a little maliciously.

“Oh! Ha! I understand! A new flame,” he cried.

“You can look at the address,” said Gould, quietly; “and read it, if you like.”

Ward took up the note, and looked surprised.

“This lad would have brought it to you in half an hour,” said Gould.

Ward tore the note open, and a thousand dollar bill dropped out. He picked it up, glanced at the amount, and then at Robert.

“And you would have intrusted this to that child—who is he?”

“Our new errand-boy.”

“But his name?”

“I really don’t know it.”

“And without knowing his name, you would intrust him with this?”

“Yes, or ten times as much.”

“But what do you know about him?”

“Nothing.”

“Who recommended him?”

“I recommended him,” broke forth the newsboy. “What have you to say against that, I want to know?”

Ward measured the indignant newsboy with his scornful eyes, folded up the treasury-note, and left the counting-room a good deal crest-fallen and annoyed.

Robert and his literary friend followed him, and, I regret to say, the latter put both hands up to his face, and ground an imaginary coffee-mill with vigor during the moment in which Ward turned to look upon him as he passed round the nearest corner. As for Robert, he did not clearly comprehend the movement, for old Mrs. Burns had kept him in-doors a great deal of the time, and his education, in some particulars, was incomplete.