CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE EMPLOYMENT OFFICE.

“Wade Brooks, the captain of the cutter told me you had a hard time on board of the yacht, and that her captain took away from you the hundred dollars which Mr. Wallgood had given you,” said Capt. Trustleton, when they were by themselves at the hotel.

“Capt. Bendig was pretty rough on me; but then that’s just my luck,” said Wade, laughing.

“Since you left your home in Midhampton, I have inquired into your situation there; and I must say that I do not blame you for leaving your place,” continued the captain. “I don’t know whether you intend to return, or not; but here is a sum of money to make good your loss on board of the yacht.”

Capt. Trustleton put a roll of bills into the hand of the boy, and then left him before he had time even to thank him for the gift. He was going to say that he did not intend to go back to the home of Obed Swikes; but he had no time to do so. There he stood in front of the empty chair in which the president of the bank had been seated, with the roll of bills in his hand. It was in the public reading-room, where plenty of people were gathered; and he did not observe that some of them were looking at him.

“Well, this is _not_ just my luck,” said he to himself. “But I will bet there is not a man in New York smart enough to get this away from me.”

Then he could not help asking himself why Capt. Trustleton had given him this money at this time. Why did he not wait till they got back to Midhampton? He would not let Matt and Lon go out of his sight for a single minute, though they had not a cent of money; but he had given him a pile of bills, and did not seem to care where he went. He did not quite understand it at first; but, after he had considered it for a while, he was confident that he got at the captain’s meaning.

The captain had told him that he should not blame him if he did not go back to live with Obed Swikes. He did not expect him to go back; and for this reason he had given him the money at the present time. Certainly Capt. Trustleton had been very kind to him. He had given him a dollar once before. It was plain enough what the captain meant. Then perhaps he did not wish him to go back to Midhampton, for he knew something about the burning of Garlick’s barn.

“That’s it! He wants me out of the way!” exclaimed Wade to himself. “With all these bills in my pocket, I shall not be hungry at present. He wants me to take myself out of the way, and I’ll do it.”

Wade held the roll of bills given to him tightly clinched in his fist, and his hand in his pocket. The bitter experience of a few days before had made him wise and prudent. He was afraid even to count the money while so many people were about, though he was very anxious to know how much he had. He judged by the size of the roll, that it must contain as much as twenty dollars; but if there were only ten he should be satisfied, for that would feed and lodge him till he could find a place to work.

He walked about the hotel for an hour longer, with the bills still in his hand. He did not see any thing more of Capt. Trustleton or the two boys. He wondered what had become of them. He concluded that they had gone to their room to talk over the events of the last two days. He wanted to renew his search for a place to work, but he did not like to go off without saying any thing to Capt. Trustleton. Finally he went to the office, and asked the clerk where the captain was.

“He has taken the train for home: he went about an hour ago,” replied the clerk to his question.

“All right,” replied Wade; and he was sure now that Capt. Trustleton did not want him to go back to Midhampton.

The wanderer wanted to count his money before he left the hotel: if he did not, he would not be able to tell whether he lost any or not. Besides, the amount would help him in making his calculations for the future. He looked about the hotel for a place where he could do it without being seen. He looked into the reading-room, among other apartments; and, as it was about eleven o’clock in the forenoon, it was by this time quite deserted. Fixing himself in a corner, he took the bills from his pocket.

It was a pleasing task; for this time it was not stolen money, and there was no one to take it away from him,--no one that he knew of. The first note he looked at was a ten-dollar bill; so was the second, and the third. The figures were so big, that he had to stop to rest his imagination. Thirty dollars so far! He began to think of buying out some of the rich men he had heard of in New York.

Again another ten-dollar bill was turned up, and then another, and another: in fact, every bill of the pile was of this denomination, and there were ten of them. One hundred dollars! And then it came to his mind, that the captain had said that he should make good the loss he had sustained by the treachery of Capt. Bendig. Wade was almost beside himself at this extraordinary luck, as he called it; but after a while he cooled off. He was ten times as much elated this time as he was when he had the same sum before. The money seemed to be ever so much more real than before.

With his hand on the money all the time, he walked about the room, thinking what he should do next. He wanted a place. He did not think, because he had money, that he could live without work: he wanted to earn his own living, and put the money into a savings bank where it would pay interest; and then he should have something to lean upon if he got out of occupation, or should be sick, so that he could not support himself.

While he was thinking of the matter, he happened to glance at one of the newspapers that lay on the table. He saw the word “Wants.” He had seen the same thing in the Midhampton paper; and he knew that people advertised when they wanted help, as men and women did when they wanted places. He wondered that he had not thought of this before; for perhaps this paper contained a score of places which he might obtain.

He took the newspaper, and sat down in the corner of the room to study the column of “Wants.” He found plenty of places that he thought he should like. “Wanted, a young man to drive an express-wagon: good recommendations required.” He could drive an express-wagon, for he had done it a great many times; but, unfortunately, he had no recommendations, good or bad. This was the difficulty which Caleb Klucker had pointed out to him. He looked at a great many other advertisements; but all of them required testimonials, as Caleb had called them.

He was beginning to take a very hopeless view of the situation, when his attention was attracted to an advertisement in another column: “Wanted, a young man with one hundred dollars, to act as cashier in a restaurant. Good security and good interest given for the money.”

Wade realized at that moment that he was “a young man with one hundred dollars.” He did not comprehend what the duties of a “cashier in a restaurant” were, though he concluded that the principal one must be to take the payment for meals. He had been to several such places in Bridgeport and in New York; and he had noticed that a man was employed to take the money. He had been to school enough to learn his arithmetic pretty well, and he thought he could make change as fast as any of the men he had seen doing it.

Wade fixed in his mind the street and number where applicants for this desirable situation were required to call; and then he started to find the place. He inquired of a porter at the door where the street was. It was a long walk to the place, and he feared that the situation might be taken up before he could apply for it. It was nearly two hours before he reached his destination. It was a small office up one flight of stairs, in an old wooden building. It was called “an employment office.”

At the side of the door were placards, stating that all sorts of persons were wanted. “One hundred waiters” were wanted. “Twenty-five male cooks” were wanted. “One hundred young men were wanted to drive express-wagons.” “Fifty men as porters were wanted.” “Seventy-five young men were wanted as clerks in stores.” “One hundred boys were wanted in all sorts of places.”

Wade wondered he had not come upon any such place before. He had been wandering all over the city in search of a place; and here was one where hundreds of young men and boys were wanted. It was just the place for him; for, among all these situations, he was sure he could find one that would exactly suit him, especially as he was not very particular what kind of work he did. He was willing to be a waiter in a saloon, an errand-boy, or a clerk: he was even willing to buckle right down to hard work.

With his hand on his money, he ascended the stairs, and found the sign, “Employment Office,” on a door which he opened and entered. The room he went into was a small office, the walls of which were covered with “wants” like those he had seen at the street-door. Behind a short counter was a dapper-looking man with a hook-nose, who smiled sweetly upon the anticipated customer. He was dressed in plaid clothes, and had a great diamond in his shirt-bosom which was big enough to qualify him to be a hotel-clerk.

“Good-morning, sir: what can we do for you?” asked the man, who called himself an “employment broker,” and for short reduced the term to simple “broker.”

“I want to get a place to go to work,” replied Wade, as intent on business as the broker.

“One dollar, if you please,” added the man of places, holding out his hand to receive the fee.

“What’s that for?” asked the young man from the country, rather taken aback by this early demand.

“For one dollar we register your name; and, as soon as we find a place that will suit you, we put you into it without any further charge,” replied the broker.

“I am willing to give you a dollar if you will get me the place,” added Wade, who did not think it was just the thing to take the pay before the work was done; but then, he was “one from the country.”

“We don’t do business in that way. We can’t keep an office open for those that want places for nothing: we have been fooled too many times for that,” said the man, with a knowing wink. “What sort of a place do you want?”

“Cashier in a restaurant,” replied Wade confidently. “The paper says, a young man with one hundred dollars.”

“Have you the money?”

“I have.”

“That’s another thing,” replied the broker.