Ralph Raymond's Heir

by Jr. Horatio Alger

"When were you expecting to leave, Mr. Cromwell?"

"Day after to-morrow, but I will pay you up to the end of the week."

"Thank you, sir."

The landlady went away sighing at the loss of one who represented to her so many dollars a month, and James Cromwell went up again to his little room. He sat down on the bed, and indulged himself in pleasant thoughts.

"What a change has come over my prospects!" he said, complacently. "Three weeks ago I was a poor clerk on a miserable salary of ten dollars a week. Now, fortune has opened her doors, and there is a prospect of my acquiring an independence, and that without much trouble. It was a lucky day when Paul Morton came into our shop. It is well that my employer was not there, or I should have been unable to act with the promptness which has bettered my fortunes so materially. It isn't every one who would have improved so shrewdly such a chance. I must say that, at least, to the credit of my shrewdness. Would Paul Morton even have thought of intrusting his ward to me, if I had not let him know that I had a hold upon him, and meant to make use of it? In that hold lies a pile of money, and I mean to squeeze it out of him. I don't think he will deal unfairly by me. He must know that it would not be safe."

Money was the god of James Cromwell's idolatry. He had been in early life a poor orphan, reared in a poorhouse, kicked and cuffed by older boys, who sneered at him on account of his poverty. Later, he was apprenticed to a druggist, and served a hard apprenticeship, poorly fed and clothed. When he reached manhood, he came to New York to try his fortune, but his unpromising personal appearance stood in the way of his obtaining a desirable situation. At last, when he was reduced to his last dollar, he obtained a situation as assistant in the small store on the Bowery, where we found him at the commencement of the story, on a salary of six dollars a week. He had remained there for several years, and still his compensation had only reached the low figure of ten dollars a week.

He had pined for riches, and dreamed what he should do if he ever could amass a moderate sum of money, but three weeks since, it seemed very improbable whether he would ever be able to compass what he so feverishly longed for.

Thus all the circumstances of his past life had prepared him to become the pliant tool of Paul Morton's schemes. In his case, as in so many others, the love of money was likely to become the root of all evil.

So, with weak and vacillating timidity, drawn on by the lust for gold, James Cromwell thought over the proposal which had been made to him, weighing the risk against the gain proffered, and the more he thought, the stronger grew the power of the temptation, and the greater became the peril which menaced the life of Robert Raymond.