The Store Boy

CHAPTER XI THE MADISON AVENUE STAGE

Ben was nat­ural­ly hope­ful, but he had count­ed more than he was aware on the chance of ob­tain­ing as­sis­tance from Ab­sa­lom Pe­ters to­ward pay­ing off his moth­er's mort­gage. As Mr. Pe­ters was in Eu­rope noth­ing could be done, and them seemed ab­so­lute­ly no one else to ap­ply to. They had friends, of course, and warm ones, in Pen­tonville, but none that were able to help them.

“I sup­pose we must make up our minds to lose the house,” thought Ben. “Squire Dav­en­port is self­ish and grasp­ing, and there is lit­tle chance of turn­ing him.”

He walked west­ward till he reached Madi­son Av­enue. A stage ap­proached, be­ing bound down­town, and, feel­ing tired, he got in. The fare was but five cents, and he was will­ing to pay it.

Some half dozen oth­er pas­sen­gers be­side him­self were in the stage. Op­po­site Ben sat a hand­some­ly dressed, some­what port­ly la­dy, of mid­dle age, with a kind­ly ex­pres­sion. Next her sat a young man, at­tired fash­ion­ably, who had the ap­pear­ance of be­long­ing to a fam­ily of po­si­tion. There were, be­sides, an el­der­ly man, of cler­ical ap­pear­ance; a nurse with a small child, a busi­ness man, in­tent up­on the fi­nan­cial col­umn of a lead­ing pa­per, and a school­boy.

Ben re­gard­ed his fel­low-​pas­sen­gers with in­ter­est. In Pen­tonville he sel­dom saw a new face. Here all were new. Our young hero was, though be did not know it, an em­bryo stu­dent of hu­man na­ture. He liked to ob­serve men and wom­en of dif­fer­ent class­es and spec­ulate up­on their prob­able po­si­tion and traits. It so hap­pened that his spe­cial at­ten­tion was at­tract­ed to the fash­ion­ably-​at­tired young man.

“I sup­pose he be­longs to a rich fam­ily, and has plen­ty of mon­ey,” thought Ben. “It must be pleas­ant to be born with a gold spoon in your mouth, and know that you are pro­vid­ed for life.”

If Ben had been wis­er he would have judged dif­fer­ent­ly. To be born to wealth re­moves all the in­cen­tives to ac­tion, and checks the spir­it of en­ter­prise. A boy or man who finds him­self grad­ual­ly ris­ing in the world, through his own ex­er­tions, ex­pe­ri­ences a sat­is­fac­tion un­known to one whose for­tune is ready-​made. How­ev­er, in Ben's present strait it is no won­der he re­gard­ed with en­vy the sup­posed young man of for­tune.

Our hero was des­tined to be strange­ly sur­prised. His eyes were un­usu­al­ly keen, and en­abled him af­ter a while to ob­serve some rather re­mark­able move­ments on the part of the young man. Though his eyes were look­ing else­where, Ben could see that his right hand was stealthi­ly in­sin­uat­ing it­self in­to the pock­et of the rich­ly-​dressed la­dy at his side.

“Is it pos­si­ble that he is a pick­pock­et?” thought Ben, in amaze­ment. “So nice­ly dressed as he is, too!”

It did not oc­cur to Ben that he dressed well the bet­ter to avert sus­pi­cion from his re­al char­ac­ter. Be­sides, a man who lives at oth­er peo­ple's ex­pense can af­ford to dress well.

“What shall I do?” thought Ben, dis­turbed in mind. “Ought I not to warn the la­dy that she is in dan­ger of los­ing her mon­ey?”

While he was hes­itat­ing the deed was ac­com­plished. A pearl porte­mon­naie was adroit­ly drawn from the la­dy's pock­et and trans­ferred to that of the young man. It was done with in­cred­ible swift­ness, but Ben's sharp eyes saw it.

The young man yawned, and, turn­ing away from the la­dy, ap­peared to be look­ing out of a win­dow at the head of the coach.

“Why, there is Jack Os­borne,” he said, half au­di­bly, and, ris­ing, pulled the strap for the driv­er to stop the stage.

Then was the crit­ical mo­ment for Ben. Was he to al­low the thief to es­cape with the mon­ey. Ben hat­ed to get in­to a dis­tur­bance, but he felt that it would be wrong and cow­ard­ly to be silent.

“Be­fore you get out,” he said, “hand that la­dy her pock­et­book.”

The face of the pick­pock­et changed and he dart­ed a ma­lig­nant glance at Ben.

“What do you mean, you young scoundrel?” he said.

“You have tak­en that la­dy's pock­et­book,” per­sist­ed Ben.

“Do you mean to in­sult me?”

“I saw you do it.”

With a half ex­cla­ma­tion of anger, the young man dart­ed to the door. But he was brought to a stand­still by the busi­ness man, who placed him­self in his way.

“Not so fast, young man,” he said res­olute­ly.

“Out of the way!” ex­claimed the thief, in a rage. “It's all a base lie. I nev­er was so in­sult­ed in my life.”

“Do you miss your pock­et­book, madam?” asked the gen­tle­man, turn­ing to the la­dy who had been robbed.

“Yes,” she an­swered. “It was in the pock­et next to this man.”

The thief see­ing there was no hope of re­tain­ing his booty, drew it from his pock­et and flung it in­to the la­dy's lap.

“Now, may I go?” he said.

There was no po­lice­man in sight, and at a nod from the la­dy, the pick­pock­et was al­lowed to leave the stage.

“You ought to have had him ar­rest­ed. He is a dan­ger­ous char­ac­ter,” said the gen­tle­man who had barred his progress.

“It would have been in­con­ve­nient for me to ap­pear against him,” said the la­dy. “I am will­ing to let him go.”

“Well, there is one com­fort--if he keeps on he will be hauled up soon­er or lat­er,” re­marked the gen­tle­man. “Would your loss have been a heavy one?” he in­quired.

“I had quite a large sum in my pock­et­book, over two hun­dred dol­lars. But for my young friend op­po­site,” she said, nod­ding kind­ly at Ben, “I should have lost it with very small chance of re­cov­ery.”

“I am glad to have done you a ser­vice, madam,” said Ben po­lite­ly.

“I know it is rather im­pru­dent to car­ry so large sum about with me,” con­tin­ued the la­dy, but I have a pay­ment to make to a car­pen­ter who has done work in my house, and I thought he might not find it con­ve­nient use a check."

“A la­dy is in more dan­ger than a gen­tle­man,” ob­served the busi­ness man, “as she can­not so well hide away her pock­et­book. You will need to be care­ful as you walk along the street.”

“I think it will be best to have a neigh­bor whom I can trust,” said the la­dy. “Would you mind tak­ing this seat at my side?” she con­tin­ued, ad­dress­ing Ben.

“I will change with plea­sure,” said our hero, tak­ing the seat re­cent­ly va­cat­ed by the pick­pock­et.

“You have sharp eyes, my young friend,” said his new ac­quain­tance.

“My eyes are pret­ty good,” said Ben, with a smile.

“They have done me good ser­vice to-​day. May I know to whom I am in­debt­ed for such time­ly help?”

“My name is Ben­jamin Bar­clay.”

“Do you live in the city?”

“No, madam. I live in Pen­tonville, about thir­ty miles from New York.”

“I have heard of the place. Are you propos­ing to live here?”

“No madam. I came in to-​day on a lit­tle busi­ness of my own, and al­so to se­lect some goods for a coun­try store in which I am em­ployed.”

“You are rather young for such a com­mis­sion.”

“I know the sort of goods Mr. Craw­ford sells, so it was not very dif­fi­cult to make the se­lec­tion.”

“At what time do you go back?”

“By the four o'clock train.”

“Have you any­thing to do mean­while?”

“No, madam,” an­swered Ben, a lit­tle sur­prised.

“Then I should like to have you ac­com­pa­ny me to the place where I am to set­tle my bill. I feel rather timid af­ter my ad­ven­ture with our late fel­low-​pas­sen­ger.”

“I shall be very hap­py to oblige you, madam,” said Ben po­lite­ly.

He had just heard a pub­lic clock strike one and he knew, there­fore, that he would have plen­ty of time.