CHAPTER IX
STEPHEN WEBB
The more Browning thought of the newsboy in whom he had so strangely recognized the son of the man whom he had so cruelly wronged, the more uneasy he felt.
"He has evidently heard of me," he soliloquized. "His father could not have been so near death as I supposed. He must have sent the boy or his mother a message about that money. If it should come to his knowledge that I am the Thomas Butler to whom his father confided ten thousand dollars which I have failed to hand over to the family, he may make it very disagreeable for me."
The fact that so many persons were able to identify him as Thomas Butler made the danger more imminent.
"I must take some steps—but what?" Browning asked himself.
He kept on walking till he found himself passing the entrance of a low poolroom. He never played pool, nor would it have suited a man of his social position to enter such a place, but that he caught sight of a young man, whose face and figure were familiar to him, in the act of going into it. He quickened his pace, and laid a hand on the young man's shoulder.
The latter turned quickly, revealing a face bearing the unmistakable marks of dissipation.
"Uncle Thomas!" he exclaimed, apparently ill at ease.
"Yes, Stephen, it is I. Where are you going?" The young man hesitated.