Professor Dick Tipton had always been a sharp boy, and earning his living in the streets of a big city had made him still sharper. He had learned to keep his eyes open and his wits about him, and it mast be confessed he enjoyed immensely the excitement and impatience of that moment.
Mr. Hobbs was almost overwhelmed by his sense of responsibility, and Dick was all alive and full of energy. He began to write a letter to Ben, and he cut out the picture and inclosed it to him, and Mr. Hobbs wrote a letter to Cedric and one to the Earl. They were in the midst of this letter-writing when a new idea came to Dick.
“Say,” he said, “the [feller] that [give] me the paper, he’s a lawyer. Let’s ax him what we’d better do. Lawyers [knows] it all.”
Mr. Hobbs was immensely impressed by this suggestion and Dick’s business capacity.
“That’s so!” he replied. “This here calls for lawyers.”
And leaving the store [in care of] a substitute, [he struggled into his coat] and marched down town with Dick, and the two presented themselves with their romantic story in Mr. Harrison’s office, much to that young man’s astonishment.
If he had not been a very young lawyer, with a very enterprising mind and a great deal of [spare] time on his hands, he might not have been so readily interested in what they had to say, for it all certainly sounded very wild and queer; but he chanced to want something to do very much.
“And,” said Mr. Hobbs, “say what your time’s worth an hour and look into this thing thorough, and I’ll pay the damage—Silas Hobbs, corner of Blank Street, Vegetables and Groceries.”
“Well,” said Mr. Harrison, “it will be if it turns out all right, and it will be almost as big a thing for me as for Lord Fauntleroy; and at any rate, no harm can be done by investigating. It appears there has been some dubiousness about the child. The woman contradicted herself in some of her statements about his age, and aroused suspicion. The first persons to be written to are Dick’s brother and the Earl of Dorincourt’s family lawyer.”
And actually before the sun went down, two letters had been written and sent in two different directions—one speeding out of New York harbour on a mail steamer on its way to England, and the other on a train carrying letters and passengers bound for California. And the first was addressed to T. Havisham, [Esq.,] and the second to Benjamin Tipton.