Fame and Fortune Weekly STORIES OF BOYS WHO MAKE MONEY

Issued Weekly—By Subscription $2.50 per year. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1905, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C., by Frank Tousey, Publisher, 24 Union Square, New York.

A LUCKY DEAL; OR, The Cutest Boy in Wall Street.

By A SELF-MADE MAN.

CHAPTER I.

THE WOLF AT THE DOOR.

“I’ve been robbed!” gasped Mrs. Hazard, a pleasant-featured little woman of perhaps forty, sinking into a chair, her face the picture of dismay.

“Mother,” exclaimed her daughter Annie, a slender, delicate girl of fifteen, who sat in a cane rocker, feather-stitching an infant’s jacket with blue silk, a small pile of the unfinished garments lying in a box on a table before her, “what do you mean?”

“The rent money is gone. I had it in this corner of the bureau, waiting for the agent, whom I expect at any moment. There were two fives and five ones. They are not here now. Where could they have gone?”

“The money may have slipped under some article in the drawer, mother,” suggested the girl, anxiously.

“No; I have searched and turned over everything. The money is gone. How are we to face this fresh misfortune?”

Mother and daughter looked at one another in silent discouragement.

And well they might feel discouraged since, with the exception of perhaps fifty cents in silver, the missing money had represented their entire capital.

And Jack, the other member of the family, a particularly bright and ambitious boy of sixteen years, had just lost his position, owing to the failure of the firm with whom he had been employed ever since the death of the husband and father, two years before, had thrown them upon their own resources.

During the lifetime of Mr. Hazard the family had lived in a rented house on a side street in a very respectable neighborhood uptown and had been considered well off.

Jack and Annie had graduated from the public school and were expecting to enter the high school with the next term, when their father died suddenly, and it was found that Mr. Hazard, who had been a liberal provider, had lived up to his means and, what was more unfortunate, had neglected to insure his life.

Of course, Mrs. Hazard had to move to a cheaper home and neighborhood, for the few dollars she found herself possessed of after the funeral and other necessary expenses had been paid would not keep them for any great length of time.

Jack soon found a position with a wholesale house down town, at five dollars a week.

Annie, who was naturally quite expert at fine needlework and embroidery, preferred to take in work to do at home to seeking a place in a factory or in a store as a salesgirl, because she was not very strong.

But home work was not very remunerative, so that the family really was dependent upon Jack, who fortunately was strong and healthy.

Thus they managed to live—exist might perhaps be the better word—in a very humble but contented way until the boy was unexpectedly thrown out of work a few days before.

Fortunately Mrs. Hazard had got her rent together, for the first of the month was at hand and the landlord’s agent was a strict man of business and showed no favors to any of the tenants.

And now at the very last minute, as if to prove that misfortune never comes singly, the money she had saved by many small sacrifices was suddenly found to be missing.

It certainly was hard luck.

“Somebody must have taken it, mother,” said Annie, after a short silence.

“The bills were there this morning after John went out, for I noticed them,” said the little mother, sadly.

“And I’ve been in here all the time except a few minutes when I ran out to the grocer’s. Was anyone here while I was out?”

“Only Maggie McFadden.”

Miss McFadden lived in the flat across the hall.

“You don’t think she could have taken the money, do you, mother?”

“I don’t want to think that she did,” replied Mrs. Hazard, mournfully.

“Maggie lost her position two weeks ago because there was some trouble about her accounts,” said Annie, slowly, as though an unpleasant suspicion was forcing itself in her mind.

The McFadden girl, who was somewhat airy and pert in her manners, was conspicuous in the neighborhood for the number and variety of her gowns and hats, and the gossips wondered where she got the money to pay for them all.

When approached on the subject she invariably said that Denny, her brother, made “slathers of dough on the races,” thereby intimating that that was the source which produced much of her finery; but many of her acquaintances knew Denny better than she had any idea of, and these persons rather doubted Miss Maggie’s statement.

At any rate, when she lost her position as cashier of a large packing house, the neighbors winked their eyes one at another and whispered, “I told you so.”

Mrs. Hazard was at no loss to understand what her daughter meant, and the sigh she uttered spoke her own thoughts as plainly as words.

“We never could accuse her,” continued Annie, dejectedly.

Mrs. Hazard shook her head.

“Poor Jack! What will he say when we tell him?” said Annie. “It will be such a shock to him. He is so hopeful. He told me only this morning that as long as we had next month’s rent in hand the future didn’t worry him. He’d see we got along somehow. Isn’t he just the best and dearest brother in the world?”

“I dread the agent’s visit, for he will surely be here to-day. He is always so prompt. What shall I say to him?”

“I don’t know, mother.”

The crisis was too much for them, and mother and daughter wept silently together.

At that moment there came a sharp rap on the door.

Mrs. Hazard started, hastily wiped her eyes, and with a nervous glance at her daughter, answered the summons.

Mr. Grab, the agent for the premises, walked brusquely into the room.

“Good afternoon, madam. I presume you have been expecting me?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Mrs. Hazard, faintly.

“I never like to disappoint my tenants,” said the agent grimly. “Here is your receipt, I suppose you have the money ready.”

“I am afraid, sir, I will have to ask you to wait a few days,” said Mrs. Hazard, anxiously.

“Haven’t you the money, madam?” spoke the agent rather roughly.

“I did have it in my bureau drawer, but——”

“But what?” demanded Mr. Grab, sharply.

“It is gone,” said the little woman, with tears stealing down her cheeks.

“Gone!” ejaculated the agent, lifting his shaggy brows, “Where?”

“I don’t know.”

Mr. Grab rubbed his chin, on which had sprouted a three days’ growth of bristly reddish hair, and a threatening look came into his eyes.

“Madam, this is a very lame excuse,” he said, angrily.

“It is the truth, sir.”

“You can’t pay, then?”

“No, sir; but if you will wait——”

“Wait, madam! I expect my tenants to pay up promptly. My experience is that if one can’t pay on the first one can’t pay on the second or third, and that if you trust a tenant once he always tries to take advantage of your good nature.”

“But, sir, I have never failed to have the money ready before, and we have lived here more than a year.”

“Quite right, madam; and in consideration of that fact I will on this occasion allow three days’ grace. I will call at twelve o’clock on Friday, and if you are not ready to pay then, I will have to serve you with dispossess proceedings. Good day, madam.”

Mr. Grab thereupon took his departure, leaving his distressed tenants in a sad state of perplexity as to where the needed fifteen dollars would come from in so short a space of time.

CHAPTER II.

IN WHICH JACK HAZARD MAKES A HERO OF HIMSELF.

When Jack Hazard left his home that morning, after kissing his mother and sister, as was his invariable custom, he was in good spirits.

“I’ll get something to do to-day sure,” he said to himself. “Mother has the rent, thank goodness, and I haven’t that on my mind.”

He found his particular friend, Ed Potter, waiting for him at the corner.

Ed worked in a Vandewater Street printing house, and he and Jack always walked down town from the neighborhood of Grand Street together of a morning.

“Haven’t caught on yet, have you, Jack?” inquired Potter.

“No; but I’ve a dozen places here I’ve cut out of the ‘World’ that I’m going to look up.”

“Hope you’ll connect with one. If you knew anything about typesticking I could put you on to a job. There’s a shop on Nassau Street wants a boy to pull proofs, hold copy, and fill in at the case on plain reprint. If you were only up in the business you could get seven or eight dollars a week.”

“I should like to earn as much as that,” said Jack, eagerly, “but I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with less to start with.”

“Why, one of these jobs is in Brooklyn,” said Ed. “You aren’t going over there after work, are you?”

“Sure, if I fail to get it on this side of the bridge,” replied Jack, with a determined air.

“But it’ll cost you carfare every day.”

“No, it won’t; I mean to walk over the bridge.”

“You’ll have to leave the house earlier.”

“I guess I will, and get home later; but when a fellow is looking for work, things don’t always come his way. However, I mean to try for all my New York ads first.”

“Oh, that Brooklyn place will be gone long before you cover all these other jobs. It won’t be worth while bothering about it.”

“I’m not letting anything get by me.”

Which showed that Jack Hazard was a persevering boy: and perseverance is one of the greatest factors of success through life.

The two boys parted at the entrance to the freight elevator of the Vandewater Street printing house, and Jack turned into Frankfort Street, crossed over to William, and began his daily hustle for work.

At many places he found a crowd already collected before he arrived, and after waiting a short time failed to secure an interview, as some boy ahead of him got the job.

One place the man wanted him to work every Saturday till ten at night, and offered him the munificent sum of $3.50 per week, with a prospective raise of fifty cents at the end of six months.

Jack refused this, as he believed he could do much better, and besides he really could not afford to work for so small a sum.

At another place he found he would have to work on Sunday every other week, and, this being against his principles, he moved on.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to strike that Brooklyn place, after all,” he said as he stepped out of a Water Street ship chandlery that had advertised for a bright boy and had taken a youth on trial an hour before.

A fleet of canal-boats was banked up against the wharves opposite, and Jack felt a strong temptation to hang around a little while and watch them take aboard and discharge their cargoes.

But, realizing that this wasn’t business, he turned away and hurried up the street.

“I might as well cross by Fulton Ferry,” he mused; “it’ll save time, and time is money with me just now.”

Although the three cents made a hole in the dime he had brought with him to pay for his lunch, Jack received his change with his customary cheerfulness and walked on board the boat.

It was half-past nine, and the boy noticed that quite a number of passengers were on board as the boat pulled out from the dock and headed across the river.

He leaned on the rail alongside a fine-looking old gentleman who held a little girl of five years by the hand while he pointed out various landmarks along the receding shore to a stylishly-dressed lady who looked enough like him to be his daughter.

“Gran’pa! gran’pa!” cried the child, tugging at the gentleman’s hand.

“Yes, my dear,” he answered, smiling down on her.

“Lift me up, p’ease; I want to see, too.”

The old gentleman raised the little girl and seated her on the rail while he held her about the waist.

She looked up and down the sun-kissed river in great delight.

“Isn’t it b’utiful, mamma?”

“Yes, dear.”

Then she noticed Jack’s admiring gaze.

He thought she was the most charming little creature he had ever seen.

She smiled in a friendly way, and then with some little hesitation held out one of her hands to him.

He took it and shook it gently.

“Oo is a nice boy, ain’t oo?”

The old gentleman looked at Jack, and the lady smiled, while the boy himself flushed a little at the child’s artless remark and the attention it had drawn to him.

“Oo! Isn’t dat high!” cried the girl, pointing at the central span of the Brooklyn bridge.

“Yes,” answered Jack.

Just then the engine bell rang, and the boat stopped in mid-stream, while her whistle gave out several shrill toots.

Another gong sounded, and the boat began to back and her head to swerve slowly down the river.

Jack looked ahead as well as he could and saw part of a large freight float close aboard.

Then came a sudden and violent shock that threw the passengers almost off their feet.

The boy grabbed the rail, but the old gentleman went down on the deck, his arm slipping from the child, who went overboard with the shock.

The lady, who had been thrown back several feet, gave a heart-rending scream and flew at the rail.

“Fanny, my darling! Oh, heaven, she is overboard! Save her!”

The little girl had struggled for a moment on the surface of the river and then sank out of sight.

One or two men in the midst of the confusion ran to get life-preservers, and everybody else, except Jack Hazard, seemed to be staggered by the calamity, and gazed out on the water with bulged eyes.

But the boy never lost his head.

Jack whipped off his jacket, mounted the rail, and leaped into the water.

He struck out lustily for the spot where the child had gone down, and presently saw one little arm and a portion of her golden hair appear on the surface not far away.

“There she is,” he murmured, and redoubled his efforts to reach her before she should go down again.

But she went under again before he could seize her, and the plucky boy dived.

Though encumbered by his clothes, Jack was so much at home in the water that he had little difficulty in following the descent of the bright-hued dress the child wore, and he had one arm about the unconscious little one in a brief space of time.

Kicking out with all his might, he rose to the surface like a duck.

A life-preserver floated near.

Resting the little girl’s head on it, he pushed it before him toward the ferryboat, the rail and end of which were now black with excited people.

Several deck hands were standing outside the folding guards with ropes in their hands, and the moment Jack was seen to be within reach one of them flung his line so that it struck the water close to him.

He seized the end with his disengaged hand, and the men began to pull him in at once.

Less than ten minutes from the time the girl was pitched into the river Jack had her back on board and regained the deck himself.

Dripping like a large Newfoundland, he was instantly surrounded by an admiring group of passengers loud in their commendations on his courage and presence of mind.

At the same time another throng gathered about the unconscious child, its well-nigh frantic mother, and the white-haired old gentleman.

“Come down into the boiler-room, young fellow,” spoke up a strapping deck hand, “and we’ll dry your clothes for you.”

And Jack, glad to get rid of the attentions of the crowd, followed his guide to the warm regions beneath the engine-room.

“Hello!” exclaimed a grimy-faced stoker. “Been overboard, eh?”

“That’s what he has,” said the deck hand. “Done what’ll put his name in the papers, Jim. Jumped overboard after a little gal that fell in from the rail where she was sitting when that barge run us afoul.”

“Is that so?” cried Jim. “Tip us your flipper, lad; you’ve got the real thing in you, all right.”

“Strip, young man. It won’t take but a moment or two to take the moisture out of your clothes down here. I reckon you’ll find it hotter than blazes afore you leave.”

“It isn’t every fellow would do what you did,” said the sweating coal-heaver, admiringly.

“Oh, I didn’t mind it; I’m a good swimmer,” said Jack, modestly.

“You ought to make a stake out of this,” said the man, hanging the dripping garments about to the best advantage.

“What do you mean?”

“The little gal’s people ought to be grateful enough to hand you out something handsome.”

“If it’s money you mean,” replied the boy, stoutly, “I shouldn’t accept a cent.”

“You wouldn’t?” gasped the man, in surprise.

“Not a nickel.”

“Why not? You’re entitled to something. You ought to have a new suit of clothes at any rate—the best that can be bought.”

Jack was silent.

“Maybe you’re well off and don’t want nothing,” said the stoker, after giving the furnace a rake with a long iron implement.

“No, I’m not well off; but I don’t take money for such a service as that.”

“Well, you’re a curious kind of chap,” replied the man, scratching his head and looking the naked but well-formed lad over from his head down. “I’d take money mighty quick if ’twas me as done the trick. I s’pose you’re too proud, eh?”

“You don’t seem to understand,” said Jack, who wished the fellow would talk about something else.

“Say,” came a voice down the stoke-hole, “send up that young fellow as soon as his things are dried. The gal’s folks have been asking for him and want to see him bad.”

CHAPTER III.

IN WHICH JACK GETS A JOB IN WALL STREET.

“What is your name, my boy?” asked the white-haired old gentleman who had accompanied the lady and the little girl on the ferryboat when, a little later, just before the boat was ready to start on her return trip across the river, Jack presented himself in his wrinkled and not thoroughly dried clothes before him in the waiting-room of the ferry-house.

The little girl and her mother had been taken to a nearby hotel, in order that the child’s garments could be removed.

“Jack Hazard.”

“And my name is Seymour Atherton. Well, Jack, you have placed my daughter and myself under the greatest of obligations to you. You are a brave lad. Your courage and presence of mind saved the life of our dearest treasure, and it would be utterly impossible for us to thank you sufficiently.”

“I hope you’ll not let that trouble you, sir. I’m glad to have been of service to you.”

“Young man, it would trouble us a great deal more than you have any idea of if we did not make some little return that will show our appreciation of your gallant deed.”

“But I don’t want to be paid for doing my duty, sir,” objected Jack, with a flush.

“I am not speaking about payment, my lad, in the sense you perhaps imagine. Such a service as you have rendered us is quite beyond monetary reward,” said the old gentleman, feelingly. “But it is not impossible that we can do something in another way. I like your face. It is a bright one, stamped with energy and determination. You will make your way in the world, I have not the least doubt. It will do you no harm to ‘have a friend at court,’ as the saying is. You must let us know you better.”

“I’ve no objection to that,” said the boy, with a frank smile.

“That’s right,” said Mr. Atherton, cheerfully. “Now, in the first place, you have almost ruined your clothes. It is only fair that you allow me to buy you a new suit at once.”

To this offer Jack made no objection.

So he permitted the old gentleman to take him to a large furnishing goods store, where he was fitted out with new underclothes, shirt, tie, etc., and from thence to a clothing establishment, where one of the best suits was placed at his disposal, his own clothes being wrapped up and ordered to be sent to his home.

“Now you must come with me to the hotel and let me introduce you to my daughter and the little girl who owes you such a debt of gratitude, which when she grows older she will realize.”

Jack put up some little objection, but was overruled.