“Well, you may stay here until the end of the week. I am sorry for you, but can’t help you. I am afraid that villain, Remington, has carried off some of my cash also.”
It proved to be true. Mr. Forbes was a sufferer also. The police were put on the track of the swindler, but Remington managed to elude all inquiries. Where he got away with his ill-gotten gains could not be discovered.
As for Joshua, Mr. Forbes unluckily formed a different idea of his business capacity from Mr. Remington. He discovered that our unhappy fugitive knew little or nothing of the goods in stock, and got quite out of patience with his numerous blunders. He did not believe in paying six dollars a week to such an inexperienced novice, when he could obtain for half the money a substitute who would at least know as much. So, at the end of the week, Joshua received notice that his services were no longer required.
“But what shall I do?” he asked, in anguish. “Mr. Remington carried off all my money.”
“Oh, you’ll get along somehow!” said the unfeeling Forbes. “You ain’t fit for my business, so, of course, you can’t expect me to keep you.”
Joshua returned to his boarding house with a heavy heart. He would have only three dollars left after paying his board bill, and what should he do if he could not get another situation?
CHAPTER XXXIV
A HUMBLE POSITION.
Joshua realized with anguish the desperate situation to which he was reduced. The money he had taken from his father, and which at the time he considered a small fortune, had all melted away, and nothing remained to him save a portion of his last week’s wages. He had fallen into the hands of the Philistines, and been fleeced by abler and more experienced rogues than himself.
What should he do? He had not money enough to go back to New York, even if he had wished it. He must stay in Chicago, and find something to do, if possible. But suppose he should fail? This possibility--probability, I might rather say--suggested itself to the unhappy Joshua, and he shuddered at the fate which might befall him. He could remain a week at his boarding place before board would be demanded, and he decided to do so, though he was not quite sure whether he might not be arrested if he failed at the end of that to pay his board bill.