CHAPTER XXXVII.

JUST HIS LUCK AGAIN!

Mr. Flinker told the new cashier that if he returned by five o’clock, he would be in season for the supper. The bargain was completed, and he was the cashier of the great restaurant. If he was minus his hundred dollars, it was in better hands than his own. In fact, he was glad to get rid of the money, for he was no longer nervous about its safety. There were so many sharpers about the great city, that he was glad to hold the note of such a man as Mr. Flinker for it. None of those swindlers like Caleb Klucker could rob him of it now.

With a light heart Wade walked up Broadway, thinking all the time about the new situation. He had a lively imagination, and he could not help fancying himself behind that counter in the restaurant, taking in the checks for meals, and dealing out the change for bills, as he had seen old Mr. Flinker do it. It was a “soft thing” for a boy who had worked as hard as he had for the last year.

Still thinking about it, he arrived at the number in Broadway contained in his directions. He took out the bill. It was against one Charles Wadley, for a dinner for six persons at the restaurant. The amount was four dollars. He found the number given him, but he could find no sign with Mr. Wadley’s name upon it. The building that was numbered 786 had a large store on the street. He went into it, but no one knew any thing about Mr. Wadley. Then he went up stairs, calling at every room to the top of the house. No one ever heard of such a person as Charles Wadley; and the janitor was sure there was no such man in the building.

Wade was determined to do his work in the most thorough manner, and he went into all the neighboring stores and offices. At last he was compelled to give it up, and returned to the restaurant; and it was about five o’clock when he arrived. He went in as though he belonged there, and looked about for Mr. Flinker. He did not see him, and one of the waiters followed him up to serve him with whatever he might desire for his supper.

“Will you take a seat here?” said the man, pulling out a chair for him.

“No: I don’t want my supper now,” replied Wade. “Can you tell me where Mr. Flinker is?”

“That’s Mr. Flinker behind the counter,” answered the waiter.

“I know; but the younger Mr. Flinker,” said Wade, who was surprised to see the old gentleman; for the proprietor had told him his father was there only in the middle of the day.

“I don’t know any thing about any young Mr. Flinker; but I dare say the old gentleman can tell you.”

Wade did not like to talk to the old gentleman, for he had the feeling that he would think he was stepping into his place, so he sat down and waited, hoping the owner of the establishment would soon appear. He waited for an hour, seated near one of the front windows of the room. Mr. Flinker the proprietor did not come; and, what was almost as bad, the old gentleman did not go.

At last he attracted the attention of the old gentleman, who called a waiter, and asked him what that boy wanted. It happened to be the same one that had spoken to Wade. The man told him that the boy wished to see the young Mr. Flinker.

“Whom do you want to find?” asked Mr. Flinker, senior.

“I was waiting for your son,” replied Wade, walking up to the counter.

“For my son!” exclaimed the old gentleman, with a jolly laugh, as though he enjoyed a joke. “I think you will have to wait a tremendous long while for him.”

“Why so, sir? won’t he be in again to-day?” asked Wade, opening his eyes very wide.

“I don’t believe he will.”

“When will he be in?”

“Really, I can’t say; but I don’t expect him this year,” chuckled the old man.

“You don’t expect him this year!” exclaimed Wade, who could not fathom the worthy old gentleman’s meaning.

“No, young man; nor next year either. I may say I don’t expect him at all.”

A customer who seemed to be intimate with Mr. Flinker, senior, came up to the counter, and helped the old man do his laughing.

“I don’t understand you, sir; and I can’t see what you are laughing at,” added Wade, very much perplexed and embarrassed.

“Well, young man, I don’t understand you any better than you understand me,” laughed the old man. “But what do you want of my son, in case you find him?”

“I have come to go to work here.”

“Oh, you have! And what do you intend to do?”

“I agreed to come as cashier of this restaurant,” answered Wade; and he was afraid the old man was trying to play some joke upon him.

“As cashier! Then you intend to take my place, for I have done that part of the work for the last forty years, and I feel able to do it a while longer. Did my son hire you for this place?”

“He did; and agreed to give me ten dollars a week, and my meals.”

“Did he, indeed? Then he engaged to give you very good wages,” laughed the old man; and so did his companion in mischief.

“I thought so myself; but, as your son offered me that price, I took him up at once,” added Wade.

“Oh! I don’t blame you at all for taking him up; and I hope he will pay you what he agreed.”

“He told me to go to work to-night, and take the money of the people who come in to supper,” persisted Wade.

“I guess not, young man: I take the money myself. I never trust any one to do that,” said the old man, chuckling again.

“Your son said you went home in the middle of the afternoon, and were here only in the middle of the day,” continued Wade, hoping to hit upon something that would move the old man.

“I think my son did not know me very well.”

“But he said he was the owner of this place, and that he only got you to come in and take the money till he could get a cashier that he could trust.”

“That was rather mean of my son, to cut me out of the ownership of my own property,” said the old man, laughing with his friend.

“He said he had to support you; but that he did not like to have you here, because you ordered him around just as if he was still a child,” said Wade, piling up the testimony as fast as he could.

“Well, now, if my son talks like that, I shall not like to have him here; and between you and me, young man, I’ll bet I shall come out of it best.”

“I’ll bet you will,” added the friend.

“He wanted an honest cashier.”

“And you are the honest cashier, are you?”

“I am; and gave security for my honesty.”

“I’m glad you did that; and I hope it will keep you honest as long as you live.”

“I wish you would tell me where I can see your son,” said Wade, in almost pleading tones.

“I have no son: I never had a son. My boys are all girls,” replied Mr. Flinker more seriously, when he saw the troubled expression on the boy’s face.

“You have no son!” exclaimed Wade; and for the moment the blood in his veins seemed to be icy cold.

It was terrible to think of; but he began to feel that he had been deceived once more. He had lost his money again: it was just his luck.

“Young man, I don’t understand your case at all,” said Mr. Flinker in a kinder tone. “I saw you here at dinner with a man; and he paid for the two meals. You went out, and came in again. You sat down in the corner together; and then you both went away. That is all I know about you or the man.”

“I saw the man talking to you when I came in,” added Wade.

“True: he did speak to me about the price of meals by the week; and that was what we were talking about when you came in.”

“He told me he was the owner of this place, and that you were his father. I answered his advertisement for a cashier who could furnish a hundred dollars.”

“And did you let him have the money?” asked the real proprietor of the restaurant, opening wide his eyes, as Wade had done before.

“I did, sir; and it was all the money I had in the world,” replied Wade, with something like a groan of anguish.

Wade Brooks related the whole story, from the time Capt. Trustleton gave him the money to the present moment, producing the note, and the bill against Charles Wadley, as proof of the truth of the statement. By this time it was dark, and too late to do any thing about finding the swindlers. Mr. Flinker called in a policeman, and told him the story. He had heard of one other case of the same kind. The keeper of the restaurant and his friend wished Wade to come again in the morning, and they would make an attempt to find the keeper of the employment office; for he must be a party to the fraud.

“Just my luck!” exclaimed Wade, as he went out into the street. “I didn’t think there was a man in New York smart enough to get that money away from me. Now I haven’t a cent to pay for a bed or for my supper.”

He wanted to sit down and cry about it; but he knew that folks would ask him what the matter was if he did; and so he kept walking, without having any place to go to. He wandered up to the vicinity of the City Hall, and occupied one of the seats in the park, till a policeman told him it was time for him to go home. He wished he had a home to go to; but he was afraid of the officer, and he resumed his wanderings. He walked up and down Broadway till he heard the clocks striking twelve. He was very tired and sleepy, and he wanted to find some place where he could lie down. He remembered going through a narrow street into which the back-doors of the Broadway stores opened, where he had seen a great many large boxes or cases. He could make his bed in one of these; and it would be better than lying down in the street.

After a while he found the narrow street, and got into one of the boxes. He fell asleep there in a few minutes; but a noise woke him after a while. He kept perfectly still, and listened. Then, in the gloom of the night, he saw two men bringing things out of the door next to him. It was a robbery. He wanted to do something. He heard a man groan inside of the store; for the door was only a few feet from him. One man went back into the store. Wade sprang upon the other.