“I’ll do it, boss!” he said, striking the box, to indicate that the shine was completed. Apart from the money that was promised him, he was glad to thwart Paul, who didn’t want his customer to ascertain the address.
“I’ll meet you here about nine o’clock, and have another shine,” said Barclay, as he slipped ten cents—double pay—into Tom’s hand.
“You’ll find me on hand, and right side up with care,” said Tom. “You’re a gentleman I like to fall in with.”
James Barclay walked away, well pleased with the arrangement he had made.
“There’s more’n one way of finding out what you want to know,” he soliloquized. “The old man ain’t sharp, or else he thinks I ain’t. I’ll give him a call when that troublesome telegraph boy is about his business. Me and the old man will have considerable business to discuss. He’s going to give me a share of his money, or I’ll shake the life out of him. It ain’t pleasant to discipline your dad, but when he don’t treat you like he ought, it’s the only way.”
Tom Rafferty, towards the close of the afternoon, loitered in the neighborhood of the telegraph office where Paul was employed. When Number 91 left the office and betook himself homeward, he did not notice that he was followed at the distance of a few rods by Tom Rafferty.
But such was the case.