"He'll be awful mad," said the little girl.
"Let him. If he had treated me decently I would have stayed with him. Now I'm glad I left him."
Mills was indeed furious when, by degrees, he had drawn from his young messenger what Frank had said. He was sorry to lose him, for he was the most truthful and satisfactory guide he had ever employed, and he now regretted that he had driven him away by his unreasonable exactions. He considered whether it would be worth while to have Frank arrested on a false charge of theft, but was restrained by the fear that he would himself be implicated in passing counterfeit money, that is, in intention. He succeeded in engaging another boy, who really stole from him, and finally secured a girl, for whose services, however, he was obliged to pay her mother twenty cents every time she went out with him. Mean and miserly as he was, he agreed to this with reluctance, and only as a measure of necessity.
As he became more accustomed to his new occupation Frank succeeded better. He was a boy of considerable energy, and was on the alert for customers. It was not long before his earnings exceeded those of Dick Rafferty, who was inclined to take things easily.
One evening Dick was lamenting that he could not go to the Old Bowery.
"There's a bully play, Frank," he said. "There's a lot of fightin' in it."
"What is it called, Dick?"
"'The Scalpers of the Plains.' There's five men murdered in the first act. Oh, it's elegant!"
"Why don't you go, then, Dick?"
"Cause I'm dead-broke—busted. That's why. I aint had much luck this week, and it took all my money to pay for my lodgin's and grub."