A millionaire at sixteen

Title: A millionaire at sixteen

or, The cruise of the Guardian-Mother

Author: Oliver Optic

Illustrator: A. B. Shute

Release date: October 12, 2025 [eBook #77036]

Language: English

Original publication: Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1892

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77036

Credits: Aaron Adrignola, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

ALL-OVER-THE-WORLD LIBRARY

By OLIVER OPTIC

Illustrated, Price per Volume $1.25

FIRST SERIES

A MISSING MILLION Or The Adventures of Louis Belgrave A MILLIONAIRE AT SIXTEEN Or The Cruise of the Guardian-Mother A YOUNG KNIGHT-ERRANT Or Cruising in the West Indies STRANGE SIGHTS ABROAD Or A Voyage in European Waters

SECOND SERIES

AMERICAN BOYS AFLOAT Or Cruising in the Orient THE YOUNG NAVIGATORS Or The Foreign Cruise of the Maud UP AND DOWN THE NILE Or Young Adventurers in Africa ASIATIC BREEZES Or Students on the Wing

THIRD SERIES

ACROSS INDIA Or Live Boys in the Far East HALF ROUND THE WORLD Or Among the Uncivilized FOUR YOUNG EXPLORERS Or Sight-Seeing in the Tropics

OTHER VOLUMES IN PREPARATION ANY VOLUME SOLD SEPARATELY

LEE AND SHEPARD Publishers Boston

“Come back, Mr. Belgrave! for Heaven’s sake come back!” Page 278.

All-Over-the-World Series

A Millionaire at Sixteen OR THE CRUISE OF THE GUARDIAN-MOTHER BY OLIVER OPTIC AUTHOR OF “THE ARMY AND NAVY SERIES” “YOUNG AMERICA ABROAD” FIRST AND SECOND SERIES “THE GREAT WESTERN SERIES” “THE WOODVILLE STORIES” “THE STARRY FLAG SERIES” “THE BOAT-CLUB STORIES” “THE ONWARD AND UPWARD SERIES” “THE YACHT-CLUB SERIES” “THE RIVERDALE STORIES” “THE BOAT-BUILDER SERIES” “TAKEN BY THE ENEMY” “WITHIN THE ENEMY’S LINES” “ON THE BLOCKADE” “STAND BY THE UNION” “FIGHTING FOR THE RIGHT” “A MISSING MILLION” ETC.

BOSTON LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS 10 MILK STREET 1896

Copyright, 1892, by Lee and Shepard

All Rights Reserved

A Millionaire at Sixteen Type-Setting and Electrotyping by C. J. Peters & Son, Boston

TO MY FRIEND AND CO-LABORER IN OUR VINEYARD Nathan Bangs Williams THIS VOLUME IS VERY CORDIALLY INSCRIBED WITH MY KINDEST REGARDS

[v]

PREFACE

“A Millionaire at Sixteen” is the second volume of the “All-Over-the-World” series; and while the book may be read independently of the first, it is the continuation of the adventures of Louis Belgrave, who was presented to the reader in the preceding story. Possibly some of my numerous friends may have accused me, after reading the first volume, with being unnecessarily liberal to my hero, in supplying him with “the missing million,” even augmented to nearly half as much more, so that he is actually a millionaire and a half; but the present story will assure such critics that even this vast sum was necessary in carrying out the purpose of the writer. But no one need tremble for his moral safety, for he will find that the young man in his moneyed abundance is well guarded by his “guardian-mother,” and by his prudent and conservative trustee.

The magnificent steam-yacht, the purchase of which required the figure at which the fortune of the hero was placed, was not obtained for sporting and pleasure uses; for Louis Belgrave has no taste for racing, and is utterly opposed to betting, or anything that can be construed as such. He had acquired a relish for yachting, though he was extremely modest in his [vi]desire in regard to the character and cost of his craft. The exigency of the story demanded such a steamer as he was persuaded by his accomplished nautical friend to purchase. This was the only excuse he could find for such a degree of extravagance; but happily his income enables him to stand the expense of sailing such a steamer. He was actuated by the very highest of motives in consenting to buy the yacht, and, in fact, it seemed to him to be his duty to do so. His mother, whom he almost worships, is borne away from him over the ocean, and the steamer seemed to him and his advisers the only means by which he could recover her, and restore her to her friends. With such an object in view, money was hardly to be considered.

The writer still holds to his belief set forth in the preceding volume that exciting incidents do not corrupt or mislead the minds and hearts of young people, and he still keeps his hero above reproach morally; and his magnificent venture is intended to promote his education, to make him a wise and good man. He has no vices, and under the system of his nautical friend, he is not likely to acquire any.

William T. Adams.

Dorchester, Mass., March 5, 1892.

A MILLIONAIRE AT SIXTEEN

CHAPTER I INTRODUCING SIR LOUIS BELGRAVE

“Buy a yacht!” exclaimed Squire Moses Scarburn, a gentleman whose avoirdupois exceeded two hundred pounds, honest weight, as he shook his fat sides with wholesome laughter. “Why not buy an elephant?”

“I am not in want of an elephant just now,” replied Louis Belgrave, of whose worldly goods and chattels the stout gentleman was the trustee.

“A yacht is a very expensive plaything, my little joker,” added the trustee.

“So is an elephant; besides an elephant is clumsy, and a yacht is not. I can’t say that I have the least desire to see the elephant.”

“I should as soon have thought of your proposing to buy an elephant as a yacht,” continued Squire Scarburn, a shade more seriously.

“An elephant may be a luxury to some people, like the nabobs of India; but my fancy does not lead me in that direction.”

“You could put a howdah on his back and ride him all over the State, to the wonder and admiration of great crowds of small boys,” said the squire, chuckling [2]as he did habitually, sometimes even when discussing serious subjects.

“I don’t care to make any such sensation as the huge beast would produce. He would frighten horses and children, and I might be mulcted in heavy damages, which would not please you any more than it would me,” replied the millionaire of sixteen; for such he was, with an income of seventy thousand dollars a year, which was a frightful revenue for a young fellow of his age, to say nothing of a surplus, as the trustee called it, of a hundred thousand or more for any extraordinary expenditure.

His mother was a most excellent woman, rather timid by nature, and made more so by the circumstances which had surrounded her recently. The greatest fear of her present existence was that her beloved son, her only child, would be ruined by his million, though the trustee insisted that there was not the slightest danger of such a calamity.

Though Squire Scarburn held the purse strings, Louis’s mother was his legal guardian, and the trustee could refuse to advance money for anything she did not approve. Mrs. Belgrave held the key to the situation; but she was the most indulgent of mothers, and her son had a great influence over her, not only because he was one of the most considerate, devoted, and reasonable young men in the world, but for other reasons which appear in the past history of the family; and practically the young gentleman was his own master.

“Well, Sir Louis Belgrave, an elephant may be expensive in the direction you indicate, and perhaps an [3]elephant is not precisely the beast to carry a young knight-errant about the country. Possibly a mule would be more appropriate and less expensive,” continued Squire Scarburn, intensely amused at the picture he was painting at the expense of Louis. “Suppose you buy a mule; and then you will want a donkey for Felix McGavonty, for I conclude you intend to make him your squire.”

“Not a bit of it, Uncle Moses,” as the two boys mentioned usually called him, for both were his protégés; “I want you for my Sancho Panza. Nothing less than a justice of the peace and a man of some weight in the community shall be my squire. Oh, I desire to carry out your brilliant idea in a respectable manner!”

“I certainly have the weight; but don’t you think I am a little too stout for an errant squire, though I should do very well for office practice? I weigh over two hundred pounds,” replied Uncle Moses, greatly amused at the fancy of his ward; and he enjoyed it none the less because the jest was at his own expense.

“You are not a pound too heavy!” exclaimed Louis. “The fatter you are the more ridiculous the whole thing will be; and I know that is what you are driving at. If you weighed five hundred pounds I should like you all the better for my squire.”

“I fear I should not be spry enough for you, Sir Louis, and I must decline the situation in favor of Felix. I shall have no serious objection to the expense of a mule for you and a donkey for Felix. That would not exhaust your income of seventy thousand for this year.”

[4]“I don’t believe it would, sir. Why, the other day you were making fun of me because you could not see how I was to spend even half of my income! The fact of it is, Uncle Moses, you have invested the million and more too well, five and six per cent; and you are going to make it hard work for me to get away with what is coming to me every twelvemonth.”

“The misfortune is, Sir Louis, that you and your mother are not accustomed to this plethora of income, and you have not yet got a fair hold on the seventy thousand a year. You don’t exactly know which way to turn to make a big hole in your revenue. But I have no doubt you will improve in good time,” chuckled the trustee.

“I have no idea of being whipped out by an income, however large it may be,” replied Louis, still in the best of humor, in spite of the heavy burden imposed upon him by Fate and his grandfather of spending his income. “I have projects and schemes in my head, Uncle Moses, that would make you dizzy if I should mention them; and as I wish you to have a level head I will not say anything at all about them yet a while.”

“A million dollars, more or less, is a sufficiently large fortune for any American citizen to possess,” continued the trustee, smoothing down his fat face for the first time in a full hour, as though he intended to say something more serious.

“I should say that a man with a million ought to escape starvation, if his money is as well invested as you have placed mine,” replied Louis.

“No levity, my little joker, for I was about to say something very serious,” added the squire.

[5]“Are you about to propose the fat man in the Dime Museum for my squire?”

“I have done with that subject for the present, though I don’t know how soon you may compel me to resume it. I am, unhappily for you, Louis, the sole trustee of all your property.”

“Unhappily! Why, the fact that you are my trustee is the one thing under the sun that saves me from the necessity of committing suicide by over-eating!” exclaimed the young millionaire. “I might have had some old hunks for a trustee, who wouldn’t do a single thing to help me spend my bulky income. In that case I should rather not have any million.”

“You keep flying off at a tangent so that I can’t ventilate my views in regard to big fortunes,” said Uncle Moses, trying to look serious. “I dare say you have forgotten my introduction to this subject.”

“No, sir, I have not; you observed that a man with a million was just as well off as a rich man.”

“I did not put the remark in just that form; but that is the substance of what I said. Compared with some men in this country, Louis, you are a poor boy with only a million. But you need not starve, and you need not go about the streets in ragged garments, if you are only economical.”

“I have already learned to live within my means, and so has my mother; so I think we shall contrive to get along without any absolute suffering. On seventy thousand a year we ought to be fairly comfortable. But I wonder how those poor people who have only twenty or thirty thousand a year contrive to get along. Do they go hungry and out at the elbows?”

[6]“I suppose they do, metaphorically at least. They have to live on their fat as I do.”

“They don’t all have it to live on.”

“They grub along somehow; and you who have enough to keep you out of the almshouse ought to be kind and charitable when you meet a poor fellow with only twenty thousand a year. But we wander. A million is enough for you; and in view of the fact that you are confronting some difficulty in spending even half of your income, my responsibility as trustee is becoming very serious.”

“I am sorry for you, my dear trustee, and I am sure I shall make your duties come easier upon you by and by; but I hope this heavy burden will not cause you to lose any of your flesh,” laughed Louis.

“I am willing to sacrifice half of my fat in any good cause, such as saving you from the disaster of becoming a double millionaire, or even worse than that. Buy a yacht? Certainly! Purchase half a dozen of them rather than have your fortune increased. That would compel me to make additional investments for you, and I should be overworked,” said the good man, puffing as though he were already suffering from his financial exertions.

“I don’t want a high-flyer yacht like the Blanche. I have my own ideas of yachting; and I am afraid I shall not be able to do a great deal in getting rid of the income; but I will exert myself in that direction.”

“That’s right, Sir Louis; do the best you can for me,” added Uncle Moses, fanning himself with a [7]newspaper, as though wrestling with the young man’s income had unduly heated his corpulent frame.

“I am afraid I am not competent to scatter a very large income; but I will do the best I can. I was not brought up to that occupation.”

“I suppose you have your eye on a yacht that will suit you?”

“No, sir; not my eye, but my mind is on one. I was talking with a gentleman at the hotel to-day about yachting, and he did me the honor to say that I had the right ideas on the subject.”

“What are your ideas, Sir Louis?”

“I do not desire an expensive yacht; an ordinary schooner that will not cost over five thousand dollars, with not over six men, will satisfy me. I want to go from port to port, and enjoy myself in a quiet way, and take my mother with me.”

“That sounds very sensible for a young knight-errant,” added the squire.

“You insist upon setting me down as a sort of Don Quixote who wants to be tilting at windmills and wine-sacks all the time; but I don’t believe I am that sort of a fellow at all,” said Louis seriously.

“I think you are fond of adventures, like the average boy, wherever you find him, if he has any life in him. Now that you have plenty of money you can gratify your tastes, whatever they may prove to be, for heretofore you have had no chance to spread yourself.”

“I have had all the excitement I needed, and I have never ceased to enjoy my studies, especially French and German.”

[8]“Now, Sir Louis, my boy, I am not an old woman, or a man without any vertebral stiffening. You have always been a good boy; you have faithfully attended to all your duties, and have not been in the least inclined to be a spendthrift. For these reasons I have full confidence in you. But I solemnly warn you, little joker, that if you get to running too fast, if you are in danger of spoiling yourself or letting others spoil you, I shall shut down upon you like an avalanche in money matters, even if I am compelled to invest your unexpended income.”

“That’s fair, Uncle Moses; but Don Quixote was a cheap sort of knight-errant, and if I imitate him, I am not likely to follow the career of the Prodigal Son.”

“I am willing to pay all reasonable bills approved by your mother, who is your legal guardian. What would be reasonable for a young fellow with seventy thousand a year would not be at all reasonable for one with only ten thousand; so that I shall be liberal with you. Though you inherit your grandfather’s money, you are to a considerable extent the architect of your own fortune, for you unearthed the missing million.”

“I think I understand you perfectly, Uncle Moses.”

“I should think you might; but understand, above all things, that I have not the remotest idea of permitting myself in any degree to contribute to your ruin or injury by giving you too much money, though you shall have all you can use in a reasonable manner, your mother and myself to be judges of what is proper. As you are aware, I have over a hundred thousand dollars surplus, which can be used for any [9]extraordinary expenditure needed at the beginning of your career?”

“What could I possibly want with that?” asked Louis rather blankly.

“If you desire to live in a brownstone front on the Fifth Avenue, near your good friend Mr. Woolridge, I should consider that within your means,” replied the trustee with a pleasant smile.

“Whew!” exclaimed the young millionaire. “I don’t want anything of that sort. It would be putting me into a cage, like a monkey.”

“Prefer adventures, Sir Louis,” added the squire with one of his jelly-like laughs.

“I shall be satisfied for the present with a cheap yacht, of good size, handsomely fixed up, with my mother’s parlor on board of her. I have bigger ideas behind this one, but I will not lift the curtain yet. If you don’t want to lecture me any more now, I will go and see Mr. Frinks Fobbington at the hotel; and he is the gentleman who talks yacht with me.”

“Nothing more now, Sir Louis,” replied Uncle Moses. “But when you get ready to buy the vessel, I shall want my friend Captain Ringgold to see her.”

Louis left the office, and soon reached the hotel.

CHAPTER II SOMETHING ABOUT THE BELGRAVE FAMILY

Sir Louis Belgrave, as Squire Scarburn insisted upon calling the millionaire hero, had never been dubbed a knight in the nineteenth century, for chivalry is an obsolete institution. He was a very enterprising young man, and he had already done some “big things.” There was no king or queen, no legion of honor, no National Academy, to honor him with a title or give him a bit of ribbon, and Uncle Moses had conferred the former upon him.

The title was a mere pleasantry, and did not amount to a “hill of beans” in a republican country. It was rather derisive than otherwise; yet it seemed to please the worthy trustee, and simply expressed his idea that the boy was fond of adventure.

Peter Belgrave was the paternal grandfather of Louis. He had married the daughter of Hans Von Blonk, and through her had come into possession of an immense tract of land, which had been the old Dutchman’s farm. This territory became very valuable, and even before the owner of it died it was largely covered with houses, mostly occupied by residents of New York City, and received the name of Von Blonk Park, because Dutch names were fashionable at that time.

[11]Peter was a shrewd man, and sold his land at high prices. Almost in spite of himself he accumulated about two millions of dollars, which he invested. He had only one child, Paul Belgrave, the father of Louis. When the War of the Rebellion broke out, this boy was filled with patriotism, and soon went into the army.

Peter’s patriotism did not amount to much, for he believed the war would be the utter ruin of the country, and that the Confederate Army would soon be in New York City. His property was his only solicitude, for he was satisfied in his own mind that the work of confiscation would soon begin in the metropolis. He turned all his large fortune into gold, and stored it for a time in a safe deposit institution. Then he built a brick vault for it under the old-fashioned chimney in the cellar of his ancient mansion. It took him six months to move the money to his house.