“I am not quite sure how I should like that business; there might be some risk attending it.”
Paul’s business was completed, and he prepared to go away. The book he put in his pocket, and took his way back to the office on Broadway. He began to feel like a young capitalist. Forty dollars may not seem a very large sum to some of my fortunate readers, but Paul had never before possessed ten dollars at a time, and to him it seemed a small fortune.
He had no idea that his visit to the bank was observed by any one that knew him, but such was the case.
Old Jerry, as the reader already knows, was a depositor at the Bowery Savings Bank, and this very morning, having a small deposit to make, he was shambling along the Bowery, when he saw Paul descend the steps with a bank book in his hand. He was intensely surprised.
[CHAPTER X.
PAUL LOSES HIS BANK BOOK.]
Old Jerry felt outraged at Paul’s withholding money from him for deposit in the savings bank.
“The—the thieving young rascal!” he muttered to himself, indignantly. “He is putting my money into the bank, and letting me starve at home, while he lives on the fat of the land, and lays up money. Me that have taken care of him ever since he was a little boy, and—and cared for him like a father.”
Jerry had a curious idea of the way fathers care for their children, judging from his words. When Paul was only six years old, he had been sent into the streets to sell matches and papers, and, being a bright, winning boy, had earned considerably more, even at that tender age, than many older boys.