“What did you do?” he asked, his voice full of sympathy.
“I went to the Times office. I knowed one of the pressmen, and he let me set down in a corner, where I was warm, and I soon got fast asleep.”
“Why don’t you get a room somewhere, and so always have a home to go to?”
“I dunno,” said Dick. “I never thought of it. P’rhaps I may hire a furnished house on Madison Square.”
“That’s where Flora McFlimsey lived.”
“I don’t know her,” said Dick, who had never read the popular poem of which she is the heroine.
While this conversation was going on, they had turned into Twenty-fifth Street, and had by this time reached Third Avenue.
Just before entering it, their attention was drawn to the rather singular conduct of an individual in front of them. Stopping suddenly, he appeared to pick up something from the sidewalk, and then looked about him in rather a confused way.
“I know his game,” whispered Dick. “Come along and you’ll see what it is.”
He hurried Frank forward until they overtook the man, who had come to a standstill.
“Have you found anything?” asked Dick.
“Yes,” said the man, “I’ve found this.”
He exhibited a wallet which seemed stuffed with bills, to judge from its plethoric appearance.
“Whew!” exclaimed Dick; “you’re in luck.”
“I suppose somebody has lost it,” said the man, “and will offer a handsome reward.”
“Which you’ll get.”
“Unfortunately I am obliged to take the next train to Boston. That’s where I live. I haven’t time to hunt up the owner.”
“Then I suppose you’ll take the pocketbook with you,” said Dick, with assumed simplicity.
“I should like to leave it with some honest fellow who would see it returned to the owner,” said the man, glancing at the boys.
“I’m honest,” said Dick.
“I’ve no doubt of it,” said the other. “Well, young man, I’ll make you an offer. You take the pocketbook—”
“All right. Hand it over, then.”
“Wait a minute. There must be a large sum inside. I shouldn’t wonder if there might be a thousand dollars. The owner will probably give you a hundred dollars reward.”
“Why don’t you stay and get it?” asked Frank.
“I would, only there is sickness in my family, and I must get home as soon as possible. Just give me twenty dollars, and I’ll hand you the pocketbook, and let you make whatever you can out of it. Come, that’s a good offer. What do you say?”
Dick was well dressed, so that the other did not regard it as at all improbable that he might possess that sum. He was prepared, however, to let him have it for less, if necessary.
“Twenty dollars is a good deal of money,” said Dick, appearing to hesitate.
“You’ll get it back, and a good deal more,” said the stranger, persuasively.
“I don’t know but I shall. What would you do, Frank?”
“I don’t know but I would,” said Frank, “if you’ve got the money.” He was not a little surprised to think that Dick had so much by him.
“I don’t know but I will,” said Dick, after some irresolution. “I guess I won’t lose much.”
“You can’t lose anything,” said the stranger briskly. “Only be quick, for I must be on my way to the cars. I am afraid I shall miss them now.”
Dick pulled out a bill from his pocket, and handed it to the stranger, receiving the pocketbook in return. At that moment a policeman turned the corner, and the stranger, hurriedly thrusting the bill into his pocket, without looking at it, made off with rapid steps.
“What is there in the pocketbook, Dick?” asked Frank in some excitement. “I hope there’s enough to pay you for the money you gave him.”
Dick laughed.
“I’ll risk that,” said he.
“But you gave him twenty dollars. That’s a good deal of money.”
“If I had given him as much as that, I should deserve to be cheated out of it.”
“But you did—didn’t you?”
“He thought so.”
“What was it, then?”
“It was nothing but a dry-goods circular got up to imitate a bank-bill.”
Frank looked sober.
“You ought not to have cheated him, Dick,” he said, reproachfully.
“Didn’t he want to cheat me?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you s’pose there is in that pocketbook?” asked Dick, holding it up.
Frank surveyed its ample proportions, and answered sincerely enough, “Money, and a good deal of it.”
“There ain’t stamps enough in it to buy a oyster-stew,” said Dick. “If you don’t believe it, just look while I open it.”
So saying he opened the pocketbook, and showed Frank that it was stuffed out with pieces of blank paper, carefully folded up in the shape of bills. Frank, who was unused to city life, and had never heard anything of the “drop-game” looked amazed at this unexpected development.
“I knowed how it was all the time,” said Dick. “I guess I got the best of him there. This wallet’s worth somethin’. I shall use it to keep my stiffkit’s of Erie stock in, and all my other papers what ain’t of no use to anybody but the owner.”
“That’s the kind of papers it’s got in it now,” said Frank, smiling.
“That’s so!” said Dick.
“By hokey!” he exclaimed suddenly, “if there ain’t the old chap comin’ back ag’in. He looks as if he’d heard bad news from his sick family.”
By this time the pocketbook dropper had come up.
Approaching the boys, he said in an undertone to Dick, “Give me back that pocketbook, you young rascal!”
“Beg your pardon, mister,” said Dick, “but was you addressin’ me?”
“Yes, I was.”
“ ’Cause you called me by the wrong name. I’ve knowed some rascals, but I ain’t the honor to belong to the family.”
He looked significantly at the other as he spoke, which didn’t improve the man’s temper. Accustomed to swindle others, he did not fancy being practised upon in return.
“Give me back that pocketbook,” he repeated in a threatening voice.
“Couldn’t do it,” said Dick, coolly. “I’m go’n’ to restore it to the owner. The contents is so valooable that most
