While the wife was in Buffalo wondering what had become of her husband, he was in New York with his venerable ex-employer, getting lessons like the following in the secrets of building up a great commercial enterprise:
"The best thing you can do, Albert," said the latter, "is to go and write a telegram, and tell your wife to go back to Rochester."
"You'd better write it; I am a poor writer," said Albert.
"No," he said; "I do not want to appear in this case at all. Write it so," he continued, "that she can move on the Fourth of July, and they can't attach her things."[477]
The first word she got from her husband was this telegram to move between two days, and back to Rochester the dutiful woman packed herself and her things.
"It was two or three weeks before I heard from him direct or knew just where he was," she said.
"I asked Charles"—one of the two managers—"how Al was, and he said Al was all right."
"Would he tell you where he was?" the State's Attorney asked.
"No, sir; when I wrote to my husband I left the direction blank, and gave the letter to Charley. I got an answer through Charley."[478]
For three weeks they would not let her know where her husband was. "Think of that," said the District Attorney. "She had to go and take her poor little letter to her husband, thinking, perhaps, if he was away from her tender care he might get to drinking, because he does drink some; but when with his wife they lived year in and year out without his tasting a drop; ... afraid that he might get to drinking, and that she could not watch over him.... It was a cruel thing to do."