“I WISH you were going with me, Mr. Darke,” said Tom, as he sat in that gentleman’s room at the Astor House, making his farewell call.

He had made all arrangements, seen his mother and sister installed in the comfortable farm-house of Hiram Bacon, had procured a modest outfit, and was ready to start for the Pacific coast. He felt that it was a great undertaking for a boy of fifteen, and he longed for the championship of some one whom he knew, even but slightly.

Darius Darke shook his head.

“I have had enough of California!” he answered. “There I met with sorrow and losses. It will be long before I care to see it again.”

“Shall you stay in New York, Mr. Darke?”

“In a week from to-day I start for Europe, to be absent for a year.”

Tom looked surprised.

“Are you going on business?” he asked.

“No. I am going on a tour of pleasure. It seems strange to me, who have been a penniless tramp for two years, that I can really afford this journey.”

“You must enjoy it all the better for that,” said Tom.

109

“I do. By the way, my good fortune still follows me. I have been following up the stock market, and the tide has been with me. I am now worth ten thousand dollars.”

“It seems like magic,” said Tom.

“I have played a hazardous game, and won. Now I have withdrawn for good. This very morning I invested my money in good dividend-paying stocks, and now I can leave America with a mind free from anxiety. By the way, if you need more money, draw on me.”

“Thank you sir,” said Tom, gratefully, “but there is no occasion. My mother and sister are well provided for, and I shall only need to leave a hundred dollars with them. I have spent sixty for clothes for them and myself, and that leaves me three hundred and forty.”

“Shall you take it all with you?”

“No; I shall leave a hundred and fifty in the bank, and get along on the remainder. I don’t want to spend it all on what may prove a wild-goose chase.”

“You are prudent; but are you not afraid of running short of money?”

“No; I am going to work my passage partly. I am in no hurry. If I can get anything to do on the way I will accept it.”

“I think you’ll get along,” said Darius Darke. “You have good common sense ideas. By the way, hasn’t John Simpson got a son?”

“Yes, a boy of about my own age.”

“What sort of a boy is he?”

“He is not a friend of mine, and I might speak too110 harshly of him,” said Tom. “He knows that his father is rich and he puts on airs accordingly.”

“How does he treat you?”

“He looks down upon me—says I am a low shoe-pegger. He doesn’t think me fit to associate with him.”

“The time may come when he will have to look up to you. Patience, Tom! You may be as rich as his father some day.”

“I don’t want to be rich unless I can get money honestly.”

“Stick to that, Tom. I haven’t led a model life. I’ve made mistakes, and committed errors, but I don’t look upon them now as I once did. I have turned over a new leaf, and I mean to do what I c............