Adventures of a Telegraph Boy or 'Number 91'. Horatio Alger Jr.
think you’re a gentleman, just because you’re a telegraph boy. I could be a telegraph boy myself if I wanted ter.”
“Go ahead – I have no objection.”
“I’ll give that little kid the worst lickin’ he ever had, soon as he gets through, see ef I don’t.”
“Do it if you dare!” said Paul, his eyes flashing. “If you do, I’ll thrash you.”
“You dassn’t.”
“Remember what I say, Tom Rafferty. Now, Mr. Meacham, we’ll go on. I hope you’ll excuse me for keeping you waiting.”
“Yes, I will, sonny. It did me good to see you pitching into that young bully. I’d like to have done it myself.”
“I know both boys, sir. Little Jack is the son of a widow, who sews for a living, and she can’t make enough to support the family, and he has to go out and earn what he can by shines. He is small and weak, and the big boys impose upon him.”
“I’m glad he has some friends; Number 91, you’re a brave boy.”
“I don’t know about that, sir. But I can’t stand still and see a little kid like that imposed upon by a big brute like Tom Rafferty.”
They crossed Broadway, and presently neared Cortlandt Street. Just at the corner stood an old man, with bent form and white hair, dressed with extreme shabbiness. His hand was extended, and he was silently asking for alms.
Paul’s cheek flushed, and an expression of mortification swept over his face.
“Grandfather!” he said, reproachfully. “Please go home! Don’t beg in the streets. You make me ashamed!”
CHAPTER II
THE CORTLANDT STREET FERRY
The old man turned, and, recognizing Paul, looked somewhat ashamed.
“I – I couldn’t help it,” he whined. “I’m so poor.”
“There is no need for you to beg. I’ll bring you some money tonight.”
“Just for a little while. See, a kind gentleman gave me that,” and he displayed a silver dime.
Paul looked very much annoyed.
“If you don’t stop begging, grandfather,” he said, “I won’t come home at all. I’ll go and sleep at the Newsboys’ Lodge.”
The old man looked frightened. Paul turned in every week two dollars and a half of his wages, and old Jerry had no wish to lose so considerable a sum.
“I’ll go – I’ll go right away,” he said, hastily.
“Be sure you do. If you don’t I shall hear of it, and you won’t see me any more.”
Just then a policeman of the Broadway squad, whose business it was to pilot passengers across through the maze of vehicles, took the old man in tow, and led him carefully across the great thoroughfare.
Mr. Meacham had watched in attentive silence this interview between Paul and the old man.
“So that is your grandfather,” he said.
“I call him so,” answered Paul, slowly.
“You call him so!” repeated his companion, puzzled. “Isn’t he really your grandfather?”
“No, sir; but as I have lived with him ever since I was very small, I have got into the habit of calling him so.”
“When did your father die?”
“When I was about six years old. He only left a hundred dollars or so, which Jerry took charge of, and took me to live with him. We were living in the same tenement house, and that’s how it came about.”
“Is he so very poor?”
“I used to think so,” answered Paul, “till one day I found out that he got a monthly pension from some quarter in the city. I don’t know how much it is, but I know he has money deposited in the Bowery Savings Bank.”
“How did you find that out, Number 91?”
“I was walking along the Bowery one day on an errand, when, as I was passing the bank, I saw grandfather going up the steps. That made me curious, and I beckoned to a friend of mine, Johnny Woods, and asked him to go in and see what the old man’s business appeared to be. I met Johnny that evening and he told me that he saw grandfather write out a deposit check and pay in money. I couldn’t find out how much it was, but Johnny said there were several bills in the sum.”
“Then your grandfather, as you call him, is a miser.”
“Yes, sir, that’s about what it comes to.”
“In what way does he live?”
“We have a poor, miserable room in a tenement on Pearl Street that costs us four dollars a month. Grandfather is always groaning about having to pay so much.”
“I suppose he doesn’t live very luxuriously?”
“Dry bread, and sometimes a little cheese, is what he lives on. Sometimes Mrs. O’Connor, an Irish washerwoman, living in the room below, brings up a plate of meat out of charity.”
Paul uttered the last word bitterly, as if he felt keenly the mortification of the confession.
“But how can you look so well and strong on such fare?” asked the old farmer, gazing not unadmiringly at the red cheeks and healthy complexion of the young telegraph boy.
“I don’t take my meals with grandfather. He wanted me to hand in all my money, and share his meals, but I told him I should die in a week if I had to live like him, so he agreed to let me pay him two dollars and a half a week, and use the rest for myself. I generally eat at some restaurant on the Bowery.”
“But that must cost you more than a dollar and a half a week.”
“So it does, sir, but I get a dollar or two extra on fees from parties that employ me.”
“Even then, at the prices I paid at the New England Hotel, I shouldn’t think you could buy three meals a day.”
“What do you take me for, Mr. Meacham – a Vanderbilt or an Astor?” asked Paul, smiling. “I might as well go to Delmonico’s or the Fifth Avenue Hotel as to the New England House.”
“Where do you eat, then?”
“Generally at the Jim Fisk restaurant on Chatham Street.”
“Is that a cheap restaurant?”
“I can get a good breakfast there for eight cents, and a good dinner for eleven.”
Mr. Meacham looked surprised.
“What on earth can you get for those prices?” he asked.
“I can get a cup of coffee, eggs, fish balls, or mutton stew, with bread and butter, for eight cents,” said Paul. “The coffee costs three cents, the other five. Then, for dinner, all kinds of meat cost eight cents a plate, and bread and butter thrown in.”
“That’s cheap enough certainly. Is it good?”
“It’ll do,” said Paul, briefly. “Last Sunday I got roast turkey. That cost twelve cents.”
“Great Scott!” ejaculated the farmer. “I never dreamed of how people live here in this great city.”
“You see we can’t all of us eat at Delmonico’s.”
“Did your grandfather ever eat at your restaurant?”
“Once I invited him, and told him I would pay the bill. He ate a square meal, meat, coffee, and pie, costing sixteen cents. He seemed to relish it very much, but when we were going away he groaned over my extravagance, and predicted that I would die in the poorhouse. I’ve never succeeded in getting him there since.”
“Well, well,” said the farmer, “of all the fools on the footstool, I believe the biggest is the man who deprives himself of vittles to save up