CHAPTER XV.

A NEW YORK SAINT.

“Really, I can’t wait so long,” said the kind friend of Wade Brooks. “But I know the people in the bank; and, if you will give me the money, they will do the business at once.”

This looked like a reasonable plan, and Wade felt quite willing to adopt it.

“I haven’t twenty dollars left to put into the bank,” said he, taking the wallet from his pocket. “I must keep some to pay for what I want to eat.”

“You can draw out what you want at any time, and you had better put in nearly all you have,” suggested Mr. Klucker.

“I have twenty dollars, all but twenty cents; and I guess I’ll put in eighteen,” replied Wade.

“Very well: it will be safe here, and you can get it when you want it,” said the missionary, in the most encouraging tones.

Wade gave him the money; and he moved off to the other end of the banking-room, as though he were going behind the partition that separated the bank-officers from the public. Wade looked in at the window to see him, if he could; but he did not appear. The missionary seemed to be a long time doing the business, and getting his book; and Wade waited half an hour with what patience he had. All the people who had been in the line when he came into the room had done their business, and had gone, though their places were filled by others.

Wade waited another half-hour; and then the attention of the cashier was directed to him as one who had waited a long time. Strange as it may seem, the country boy did not suspect any thing wrong; for one who had given all his money but ten cents to a poor sick woman, and who was employed by “our association” to look out for the sick and the stranger, could not steal his money.

“What are you waiting for, young man?” called the cashier, from the window.

“I am waiting for my book,” replied Wade.

“What book was that?”

“Mr. Klucker took my money in there about an hour ago.”

“Who?” asked the cashier, beginning to take an interest in the matter.

“Mr. Caleb Klucker. He said he knew you in there, and he would get a book for me without waiting so long,” answered Wade, who thought it a little odd that they did not know the name.

“I don’t know any such person; and I am the only one that takes deposits,” replied the cashier. “How much money did you give him to take in here?”

“Eighteen dollars, sir.”

“Did any one come in here from the front?” asked the cashier, turning to the clerks in the office.

No one had come in from the front, or from anywhere else. One of the assistants had seen a seedy-looking man pass out at the rear door, which was little used.

“I am sorry for you, young man; but it is plain enough that you have been robbed of your money by a swindler,” said the cashier, shaking his head. “You will never see your eighteen dollars again.”

“But Mr. Klucker was a missionary; and he went about looking up the sick and the stranger,” protested Wade, confounded by the explanation of his long waiting.

“Especially for the stranger,” added the cashier, with a significant smile. “You should have handed your money in at this window, and then it would have been all right.”

“I thought this man was a New York saint,” added Wade, with about all the pluck taken out of him.

“No: he was a New York sinner.”

“But he was going to get me a place to work, and I never thought that he could be a thief.”

“That is just what he was,” said the cashier, resuming his work.

“But where shall I find Mr. Klucker?” asked Wade, not yet reconciled to the loss of his eighteen dollars.

“You will not find him: he will diligently keep out of your way during the rest of your stay in New York. You can go to the police; but I think it will do no good,” answered the cashier, with more indifference in his manner than a boy who has lost eighteen dollars likes to see.

Wade Brooks hung round the bank till noon, in the hope that Mr. Klucker had been slandered by the cashier, and that he would return to restore his money. But the missionary was not one of that sort of men: when he got any money into his hands, no matter by what means, he made a business of holding on to it. He did not show himself again. Wade left the bank with a heavy heart. Was that the kind of saints they had in New York?

The unhappy boy from the country walked down the street, looking at every man he met, in the hope that he might see the swindler; but he did not. He continued his walk till he reached the cheap restaurant where he had eaten his breakfast. He went in, and asked the man at the counter if he could tell him who the man was that he had met at the table.

“His name is Jeremy Diddler,” replied the man, with a coarse laugh.

“Can you tell me where he lives?” added Wade, glad to learn the name of the New York saint.

“He lives on green countrymen most of the time,” laughed the man.

“But I mean, where is his house?”

“His house! he don’t have any house except when he is boarded at the county hotel.”

“Where is that?” asked Wade blankly.

“It is on an island in East River; but he is not boarding there just now,” said the man, winking at a waiter who was listening to the conversation.

“Can you tell me where I shall be likely to find him?” asked the unhappy Wade.

“I cannot; but you can inquire for him at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and they will tell you whether he is there or not,” said the keeper of the restaurant, winking again at the waiter.

Wade wanted to know where the Fifth Avenue Hotel was, and was told so that he could find it.

“I say, sonny, have you been boarding that dead beat?” inquired the keeper.

“Boarding what?”

“The fellow you have been asking about.”

“I have not been boarding anybody: I don’t keep a boarding-house. I let him take eighteen dollars of mine to put in the savings bank, and get me a book; and I haven’t seen him since. And now I want to find him.”

“When you do find him, I want you to let me know, for it will be a thing worth knowing,” laughed the keeper.

“You needn’t laugh at me,” said Wade, a little hurt, for it seemed like laughing at a funeral to him, after he had lost all the boat had brought except two dollars.

“Served you right, sonny; and, if the lesson you have learned costs you only eighteen dollars, you bought it cheap,” added the keeper. “Some of the countrymen who come here lose hundreds of dollars in just the way you lost your money: so you got off cheap.”

“It wasn’t my fault, for I thought he was a missionary,” Wade explained.

“So he is,--a missionary to enlighten countrymen who will trust their money in the hands of such dead beats,” chuckled the keeper. “You can inquire at the Fifth Avenue Hotel for him.”

The man turned to attend to a customer; and Wade retreated into the street, for being laughed at was almost as bad as being robbed of his money. Near the restaurant he met a policeman. Klucker had told him what the man in the uniform was, and had explained to him a great many other things, in answer to his questions, on the way to the bank. He told his story to the policeman; but he treated the matter very lightly, and candidly told him he would never see his money again. But he went back to the restaurant with him, and went through the form of asking a great many questions; but nothing came of his investigation.

Wade tramped up to the bank again. He went in, and asked if Mr. Klucker, or Mr. Diddler as the keeper of the restaurant had called him, had been at the place since he left. He had not been there; and the cashier smiled when he told him so. The poor boy could not see why everybody, even the policeman, was disposed to laugh at him. He felt bad enough, without having folks make fun of him. It was no laughing matter. The man in the restaurant had told him to take a horse-car at the Astor House, which would carry him to the Fifth Avenue Hotel. He easily found the horse-cars; but he did not feel able to invest five cents in a ride, and he decided to walk, using the cars as his guide.

It was a long tramp, and he stopped so many times on the way to look up the cars that were marked “Fifth Avenue,” that he did not reach his destination till the middle of the afternoon. In spite of his gloomy state of mind, he could not help stopping to admire the squares and the wonderful buildings, and to gaze upon the vast throng of people that filled the streets. He was amazed at the hotel, which he had supposed was something like the tavern in Midhampton. It was a palace, compared with any thing he had ever seen before. As he had never hesitated to enter the tavern when he wished to do so, he did not fear to go into the hotel.

He was bewildered by the grandeur and magnitude of the establishment. He paused at the office, and looked at the spruce clerks behind the counter. He wondered if it would be safe to speak to one of them; but he saw others do so, and he determined to make the attempt. The diamonds in their shirt-bosoms were very large; but they could not more than eat him.

“Is there a man by the name of Mr. Caleb Klucker stopping here?” he ventured to ask.

“Caleb Klucker,” repeated one of the clerks, turning to the other, and laughing.

“That is what he said his name was; but another man told me it was Jeremy Diddler,” added Wade, fearing that he might have given the wrong name.

“Jeremy Diddler! Oh, yes, he is always here!” exclaimed the clerk.

But what was the man laughing at? Wade had said nothing funny, that he was aware of; and these clerks did not know that he had been gouged out of eighteen dollars.

“Do you wish to see Mr. Diddler?” asked the clerk politely.

“I do want to see him,” replied Wade decidedly.

The clerk snapped a bell on the marble counter.

“Show this young man to No. 942,” he added to the servant who answered it.

Wade followed him, as told to do.