CHAPTER III.
SOMETHING OF THE PAST

Matt Lincoln did not stop until he reached Temple Court, as that large office-building on the corner of Nassau and Beekman streets is called. Then he drew a long breath as he took a stand in one corner of a side corridor.

“There, I’ve put my foot into it again, I suppose,” he said, somewhat dismally. “I reckon old Uncle Dan was right, I’m the rolling stone that’s forever getting into a hole and out without settling anywhere. But I couldn’t stand it to see Miss Bartlett threatened. It wasn’t a fair thing to do, and that auctioneer ought to be run out of the city. I suppose he’ll be after my scalp now.”

Matt Lincoln was sixteen years of age. For the past two years he had been depending entirely upon himself, and during that time he had, indeed, been a rolling stone, although not entirely without an object.

Up to his tenth year Matt had lived with his father and mother in the Harlem district of the great metropolis. He had attended one of the public schools, and, take it all in all, had been a happy boy.

Then came a cloud over the Lincoln home. Mr. Lincoln was interested, as a speculator, in some mines in Montana, and by a peculiar manipulation of the stocks of these mines he lost every dollar of his hard-earned savings. He was an over-sensitive man, and these losses preyed upon his mind until he was affected mentally, and had to be sent to an asylum.

For several months Mrs. Lincoln and Matt paid weekly visits to the asylum to see the father and husband, and they were beginning to rejoice over the thought that Mr. Lincoln would soon be himself once more, when one day Mrs. Lincoln fell down in the middle of Broadway, and a heavily-loaded truck passed directly over her chest.

When the poor woman was picked up it was found she was unconscious. An ambulance was at once summoned, and she was conveyed to one of the city hospitals. Here Matt visited her, and listened to her last words of love and advice. She died before sunrise the next day, and three days later was buried.

If his mother’s unexpected death was a shock to poor Matt, it was even more of a one to Mr. Lincoln. Again was the father and husband’s mind unbalanced; this time far worse than ever before. He escaped from the asylum, made a dramatic appearance at the home during the burial services, and then disappeared, no one knew where.

Matt’s only remaining relative at this time was his Uncle Dan, a brother to Mr. Lincoln. He took charge of Matt, and took the boy to his home in Bridgeport, Connecticut. At the same time a diligent search for Mr. Lincoln was begun.

The search for Matt’s father was unsuccessful, although continued for several weeks. It was learned that he had boarded a train in Jersey City bound for Philadelphia, but there all trace of his whereabouts was lost.

Matt lived with his Uncle Dan for four years. He went to school in Bridgeport part of the time, and when not learning, could be found at Mr. Lincoln’s ship chandlery, a large place, situated down near the docks.

It would seem that the tragic occurrences through which he had passed would have made Matt melancholy and low-spirited, but such was not the case. Mrs. Lincoln had naturally been of a light heart, and the boy partook of much of his mother’s disposition. He loved a free-and-easy life, loved to roam from place to place. With a captain who was a friend of Uncle Dan, he had made a trip to Bangor and Augusta, and he had likewise put in two weeks at a lumber camp in Maine, and a month during the summer at a hotel among the White Mountains, doing odd jobs for the proprietor.

“A rolling stone and nothing less,” Uncle Dan had called him, over and over again, and the title seemed to fit Matt exactly.

At length, when Matt was fourteen years old, Uncle Dan Lincoln, who was then an elderly man, was taken with pneumonia, and died two weeks later. His wife, a crabbed woman, who detested Matt, and was glad when he was out of the house, at once sold out the chandlery, and went to live with her folks in a small village in Vermont. Thus Matt was thrown out upon his own resources with no capital but a ten dollar bill, which his Uncle Dan had quietly slipped into his hand only a few days before the end.

Matt remained around Bridgeport but two days after his uncle’s funeral. Then he struck up a bargain with the captain of a schooner which was loaded with freight for Philadelphia, and sailed for that city.

When no trace of Matt’s father could be found the detectives who had been put on the case declared their belief that the poor man had drowned himself in the Delaware River. This belief was strengthened when some clothing that looked like that which the demented man had worn was found in a secluded spot not far from the river bank.

But Matt could not bring himself to believe that his father was dead. There was a hope in his breast which amounted almost to a conviction that some day he would again find his parent, alive and well.

Yet Matt’s search in and around Philadelphia, lasting several months, was unsuccessful. His money was soon spent, and then he started to tramp from Philadelphia to his former home, New York.

This tramp, of about one hundred miles by the various turnpikes through New Jersey, took the boy just one week, and when he arrived in the metropolis, both his clothing and his shoes were considerably worn. But he brushed up, and lost no time in hunting up work, knowing that it would never do to remain idle.

For two days Matt was without employment. Then he thought of the man who had sold his father the mining shares, Mr. Randolph Fenton, and he paid the stock-broker a visit at his offices, on Broad street, just off of Wall street.

As it happened, Randolph Fenton was just then in need of a boy to run errands and do copying, and after a talk with Matt, he hired him at a salary of four dollars a week.

“I’ll take you in because I thought so much of your dear father,” explained Randolph Fenton. “We were great friends, you must know, and I feel it my duty to do something for his son.”

Randolph Fenton spoke very nicely, but Matt soon found that he was by no means the kind-hearted gentleman he wished to appear. In reality, he was very mean and close. He worked his clerks almost to death, and such a thing as a raise in salary was unknown in the office.

But Matt found it would do no good to complain. Times were just then somewhat hard, and another place was not easy to obtain. He decided to make the most of it until times grew better, and in this resolve remained with Randolph Fenton week after week until the opening of this story.

Matt had been sent by Randolph Fenton on an errand to Temple Court, to be done as soon as the boy had finished lunch. Waiting for another minute to make certain that he was not being followed, the boy hurried to one of the elevators, and was lifted to the third floor.

The errand was quickly transacted, and with several books under his arm for his employer, Matt started on the return to the offices in Broad street.

Not wishing to be seen in the vicinity of the auction store, Matt turned down Park Row instead of Nassau street, and so continued down Broadway, his intention being to pass through Wall to Broad.

He had just reached the corner of Fulton street when some one tapped him upon the shoulder, and turning, he found himself confronted by Andrew Dilks, the old auctioneer’s assistant.

CHAPTER IV.
AN INTERESTING PROPOSITION

On catching sight of Andrew Dilks Matt’s first thought was to break and run. But a second look into the old auctioneer’s assistant’s face assured him that no immediate harm was meant, and he stood his ground, his eyes flashing, defiantly.

“You didn’t expect us to meet quite so soon, did you?” remarked Andrew Dilks with a quiet smile.

“No, I didn’t,” returned Matt bluntly.

“I suppose you were doing your best to keep out of the way of Gulligan and myself.”

“Is Gulligan the man I had the row with?”

“Yes.”

“Then you are right. I don’t want to get into trouble for nothing. That young lady was not to blame for what happened, and I considered it my duty to take her part.”

“Mr. Gulligan was very mad,” went on Andrew Dilks, still smiling quietly.

“I can’t help that. He ought not to have pitched into me the way he did.”

“I agree with you.”

At these words, so quietly but firmly spoken, Matt’s eyes opened in wonder. Was it possible that the old auctioneer’s assistant took his part?

“You agree with me?” he repeated.

“Yes, I agree with you. Gulligan was altogether too hasty – he most generally is,” returned Andrew Dilks.

“I’ll bet you don’t dare tell him that,” and Matt grinned mischievously.

“I have just told him.”

“What?”

“Yes. I believe that unknown man was entirely to blame. It was a shame the way Gulligan carried on. As soon as you ran out he turned upon me for not stopping you, and we had some pretty hot words.”

“Good for you!” cried Matt. “I must thank you, not only for myself, but for Miss Bartlett as well.”

“Those hot words have cost me my situation,” went on Andrew Dilks more soberly.

Instantly Matt’s face fell.

“That’s too bad, indeed, it is!” he said earnestly. “Why, I would rather have gone home and got the money to pay for the broken stuff than have that happen.”

“It was not altogether on account of the broken piece of bric-a-brac,” went on Andrew Dilks. “Gulligan has been angry at me for over two weeks – ever since I wouldn’t pass off a counterfeit five-dollar bill he had taken in. I said the bill ought to be burned up, but he wouldn’t hear of it.”

“But now you are out of a job.”

“That’s true. But I don’t much care. Working for him was not easy, and he never paid me my weekly wages of ten dollars until I had asked for it about a dozen times.”

“I thought auctioneers made more than that,” said Matt. There was something about Andrew Dilks that pleased him, and he was becoming interested in the conversation.

“Most of them do – a good deal more. But Gulligan considered that he had taught me the business, and that I was still under his thumb.”

“Why don’t you go in business for yourself? It seems to me it would just suit me,” said Matt enthusiastically. “I once passed through the town of Rahway, out in New Jersey, and a fellow not much older than you had a big wagon there, and was auctioning stuff off at a great rate – crockery ware, lamps, albums, razors, and a lot more of goods. They said he had been selling goods there every night for a week.”

“Those are the fellows who make money,” returned Andrew Dilks. “Here in the city the business is done to death. Give a man a good team of horses and a wagon, and enough money to stock up, and he can travel from place to place and make a small fortune.”

“I believe you. Why don’t you start out?”

“I haven’t enough money, that’s the only reason.”

“How much would it take?”

“The price of the turnout, from two hundred dollars up, and about a hundred dollars for stock. You know stock can be purchased as often as desired.”

“By crickety! If I had the money I would go in with you!” cried Matt, caught with a sudden idea. “That sort of thing would just suit me.”

“You? Why I thought you were a city boy, a clerk – ”

“So I am. But my Uncle Dan always called me a rolling stone, and that hits it exactly. I am tired of New York, and I would jump at the first chance to get out of it and see some of the country.”

“Then you are like me,” returned Andrew Dilks warmly. He was quite taken with Matt’s candor. “If I had a turnout I would travel all over the United States, stopping a week here and a week there. How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“I am twenty-one. Do you live with your parents?”

“No, I am alone here.”

“So am I. I used to live in Chicago before all my folks died. I like your appearance. What is your name?”

Matt told him, and also gave Andrew Dilks a brief bit of his history. The auctioneer listened with interest, and then told a number of things concerning himself. He had been with Caleb Gulligan four years. He had been sick several times, but, nevertheless, had managed to save a hundred and thirty-five dollars.

“I’ve got seventy-five dollars saved, part of which I got from other brokers than Mr. Fenton, for running errands, and so forth,” said Matt. “That and your money would make two hundred and ten dollars. Couldn’t we start out on that?”

“We might,” replied Andrew Dilks reflectively. “You are on your way to work now, are you not?”

“Yes, and I ought to be at the office this minute!” cried Matt, with a start. “Mr. Fenton will be tearing mad, I know. But I won’t care – that is, if we come to a deal.”

“Come and see me this evening, then. I am stopping at the Columbus Hotel, on the Bowery.”

“I know the place, and I’ll be up at seven o’clock,” returned Matt; and on this agreement the two separated.

“My, but I would like to become a traveling auctioneer!” said the boy to himself, as he hurried down Broadway. “I wish I had enough money so that we could go in as equal partners. He seems a first-rate chap in every way, and honest, too, or he would not have gotten into that row over the five-dollar counterfeit.”

Matt had lost much time in talking to Andrew Dilks, and now, in order to reach Wall street the quicker, he hopped upon the tail-end of a dray that was moving rapidly toward the Battery.

“Beating the cable cars out of a nickel!” he called to the driver, and that individual smiled grimly, and said nothing.

Less than ten minutes later the boy entered the stock-broker’s main office. He was just about to pass into Randolph Fenton’s private apartment when the figure of a man moving rapidly down the street attracted his attention. It was the red mustached man who had created the trouble at the auction store.

“Please give these books to Mr. Fenton, and tell him I’ll be back shortly,” said Matt to the head clerk, and without waiting for a reply he placed his package on a desk, and hurried out of the door after the man.