“The boy broker,” said the bookkeeper, taking Herbert’s card from a drawer to find his address. “He is at 111 Nassau Street. Shall I send for him?”
“Yes, do so,” said the proprietor as he walked away.
“The boy broker,” repeated the bookkeeper to himself, catching at his employer’s words. “That has a good ring to it and would sound well on young Randolph’s cards.”
Having a pen in his hand he dipped it in red ink and printed diagonally across Herbert’s card the words The Boy Broker. “That looks well,” said he to himself, holding it off and eying it critically. “It is catchy. I will suggest to young Randolph that he adds it to his cards and prints it in red ink as I have done. There’s nothing like advertising,” he went on, talking to himself. “It pays, and this will pay Randolph—I know it will.”
The suggestion was accordingly made to Herbert and he adopted it, having his cards printed precisely as the one the bookkeeper had shown him.
And this is the way he became known as The Boy Broker. The name proved “catchy,” as the bookkeeper had predicted, and after adopting it Herbert found his business growing more rapidly than ever. But just now a most unexpected bit of good luck came to the young Vermonter and at a time too when he felt sorely the need of money. The cause brought by Mr. Goldwin’s lawyer against Christopher Gunwagner for false imprisonment of Herbert Randolph had come up for trial. Herbert and Bob were summoned to court to testify against the old fence.
The trial was ably conducted on both sides, but the fact that young Randolph had been restrained from his liberty by one Christopher Gunwagner, a notorious fence, was quickly established. It only remained then for the jury to find the damages.
Herbert had sued for one thousand dollars, and his lawyer made an able argument to recover the full amount.
He dwelt at length upon our hero’s sufferings in that damp, musty cellar, infested as it was by rats to such a degree as to threaten his reason; all of which was only too true. Graphically did the lawyer picture this scene, so graphically that the hearts of the jurymen were noticeably touched.
Then the lawyer argued that outside and beyond the actual injury suffered, there should be an exemplary damage awarded. The worst traits of the old fence were shown up, and contrasted with the spotless character of Herbert Randolph.