“Why, I might be beaten, and if I do I have no money to pay the bill. I forgot my pocket-book,” said Guy, ashamed to acknowledge that he did not own a cent in the world.
“Is that all?” cried one of the players. “That’s easily enough got over. Say, Jake,” he added, calling to the proprietor of the saloon, “if Harris gets stuck for this game, you’ll chalk it, won’t you?”
“Oh, sure,” replied the Dutchman readily. “I drusts him all de peer he vants.”
The boy had been a good customer, and he could afford to accommodate him to a limited extent.
This was a new chapter in Guy’s experience. He had never thought of going in debt before, and ere many weeks had passed away he had reason to wish that no one had ever thought of it for him.
About the time Guy first met these new friends he made the acquaintance of Mr. Jones, the commercial traveler, who was presented to him by his brother, Will Jones, the junior clerk. These two young gentlemen, Mr. Jones and his brother, had private reasons for hating Guy most cordially. Will had been an applicant for the position of shipping clerk, and indeed Mr. Walker had partly promised it to him; but yielding to the wishes of his partner, he gave Guy the situation instead, and made Jones junior clerk, with the promise of something better as soon as there was an opening.
Will, of course, was highly enraged. Being rather a fast young man, he had got deeply in debt, and needed the extra hundred and fifty dollars—in his subordinate position he received but two hundred and fifty—to satisfy his creditors, who were becoming impatient. His brother, the commercial traveler, was absent selling goods for the firm, and not knowing what else to do, Will wrote him a full account of his troubles, and ended by begging the loan of a few dollars. The commercial traveler replied as follows:
“You have been shamefully treated. That place was promised to you, and you shall have it if I die for it; but I can’t lend you any money. You ought to have better sense than to ask me, for I have often told you that my commission does not begin to support me. If it were not for my other business, I should be in a hard row of stumps directly. Smoke fewer cigars and drink less beer till I come, and I’ll see what can be done. In the meantime watch Harris—watch him so closely that you can tell me every one of his habits. If I can get a hold on him I’ll have him out of that store, no matter if he is the son of the senior partner.”
In accordance with these instructions, the object of which Will fully comprehended, he set himself to act as a spy upon the shipping clerk, and every movement that young gentleman made during business hours and afterward, was carefully noted.
At first Will saw nothing encouraging in Guy’s behavior, for his habits bore the strictest investigation; but from the time he got into the way of going to Dutch Jake’s saloon for cigars and beer, the spy collected abundant evidence against him. When the commercial traveler returned he listened with interest to the story his brother had to tell, and when it was finished said: