“No, it’s Shakespeare or Byron,” answered Jones; “I forget which. Good-evening, gents.”
“Would you like to know where Mr. Jones spent the evening, Gilbert?” asked his room-mate.
“On Fifth Avenue?”
“No. Mr. Tarbox followed him, and saw him enter a billiard-saloon on the Bowery. Jones is a first-class humbug.”
CHAPTER XV.
AT STEINWAY HALL.
Simon Moore, the book-keeper in the broker’s office where Gilbert was employed, was a young man, somewhat under thirty. He understood his business very well, and thus far had given satisfaction to Mr. Sands. Personally, however, he was not agreeable. He was irritable and exacting, and had not been liked even by his cousin John, when the latter was office boy. Now, however, that John had been discharged, the book-keeper, as we have seen, made common cause with him, and John came to look upon him as a friend.
In this Moore was not altogether disinterested. John’s mother, who was his aunt, kept a boarding-house, and found it difficult to meet her expenses. John’s wages, though small, were important to her, and now that she was deprived of this resource, her nephew feared that he might be called on for assistance. It was in order to save his own purse that he desired to reinstate John in his old place. The readiest method that occurred to him was to prejudice Mr. Sands against Gilbert.
“Are you going out this evening, cousin Simon?” asked John, one evening.
“I may go out by and by.”
“May I go with you?”