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 23 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 24 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.