He instantly conceived the design of getting hold of this fifty dollars. As we know, he was almost penniless, and money he sorely needed to effect his escape from the city, where he was placed in hourly peril. To take it from Julius would give him more pleasure than to obtain it in any other way, for it would be combining revenge with personal profit. Not that this revenge would content him. His resentment was too deep and intense to be satisfied with any such retaliation. He wanted to make the boy suffer. He would hardly have shrunk from taking his life. He was, in fact, a worse man than Jack Morgan, for the latter was not naturally cruel, though, under temptation, he might be led to desperate acts.
"Now tell me what you want to do, Julius," said Paul.
"I want to go out West."
"You are rather young to travel alone. Besides, you don't know anything about the West, do you?"
Julius admitted that he did not. His education had been very much neglected. He probably could not have named half a dozen States, and had the vaguest idea of the West. He had heard it spoken of, and some boys whom he used to know about the streets had gone out there. But beyond that he knew nothing.
"How far do you think it is to the West?" asked Paul.
"About a hundred miles."
"It is all of that," said Paul, laughing. "Now I'll tell you what I would do if I were in your place."
"What?"
"Were you ever in the Newsboys' Lodging House?"