"I wish I had hold of my money, I'd travel a bit before settling down," Mark told his friend Carl. But Mark got hold of very little cash, and so had to stick at the office grind, week in and week out, winter and summer. Once in a great while he slipped away—to play ball or go fishing—but this always brought on a good scolding from his step-father.
"Boys nowadays want to play, they don't want to work," grumbled Jadell Powers. And then he would give Mark copying and other work to do that would keep the lad busy until nine or ten o'clock at night.
Two days before the opening of this story the boy and his step-father had had some hot words concerning several legal documents which Mark had copied. Mr. Powers had given directions to have them transcribed in a certain way. Mark had followed directions, and then the lawyer said that was not the way at all. In his rage Jadell Powers had threatened to thrash Mark and had taken up a book to throw at the boy's head. But Mark had stood his ground.
"You hit me and I'll hit you!" he cried, pale with resentment, and the look in Mark's eye made the lawyer drop the volume on his desk. There the quarrel rested, but it was not settled by any means.
Mark was so busy copying the papers which had been given to him that he had no time to think of his troubles, but once his step-father was gone a look of disgust crossed the boy's face.
"I'm just about as sick of this as a fellow can be!" he murmured, as he walked across the office, to gaze out of the window to the street below. "It's getting worse and worse every day! I really can't see how I'm going to stand it much longer! I wish I was a thousand miles from here!"
The office was a small affair, fronting on one of the main streets of Philadelphia. Next to it was another apartment, in which were located Mr. Powers' private desk and his safe—the latter an old-fashioned affair and scarcely fireproof.
As Mark gazed out of the window he saw a commotion in the street—coming from a restaurant on the corner. Then the cry of fire was raised, and soon a crowd gathered, while a dozen people ran from the burning building.
"A fire! I must see it!" cried the lad. He was dying for a little excitement, and rushed out of the office, slamming the door after him. He hurried downstairs and outside, and soon joined the crowd in the street.
In those days—it was but the year 1848—fire engines were not what they are to-day, and it took some time for them to reach the locality of the conflagration. But fortunately, the fire did not amount to much, and in half an hour it was out and the crowd dispersed as rapidly as it had gathered.