I will not give it in detail, and in Swivel’s bad grammar; a less rambling account will suffice.
When Brandon Tarr had made his rapid retreat from the office of Adoniram Pepper and Co. he had run across the street, dodged around the first corner, and then walked hastily up town. He determined to keep away from the office for the remainder of the day, hoping to tire out both Uncle Arad and the deputy sheriff.
Finally he took a car and rode over to Brooklyn, and it was there that he fell in with Swivel, who was a veritable street gamin—a “wharf-rat” even—though a good hearted and not an altogether bad principled one.
It being a time in the day when there were no papers to sell, Swivel (wherever the boy got the name he didn’t know, and it would have been hard to trace its origin) was blacking boots, and while he shined Brandon’s the two boys scraped up an acquaintance.
Fearing that Uncle Arad or the officer, or perhaps both, would be on the watch about the shipping merchant’s office, or the steamer dock, Brandon decided that Swivel would be a good one to have along with him to send ahead as “scout,” and for a small sum the gamin agreed.
Brandon was a country boy, and was unfamiliar with city ways or city conveniences. It never crossed his mind to use the telephone communicating with his friends, and Swivel knew very little about telephones, any way.
So they waited until toward evening and then came back to New York.
Water Street and its vicinity, and the docks, were as familiar to Swivel as were the lanes and woods of Chopmist to Brandon. By devious ways the gamin led the captain’s son to the ship owner’s office, but it was quite dark by that time and the place was closed.
So they went to the pier at which the whaleback lay, and here Swivel showed that he was of great use to Brandon, for had it not been for him, his employer would have run straight into a trap. The deputy sheriff, Snaggs, was watching the steamer, and no less a person than Mr. Alfred Weeks himself, was talking with him.
By careful maneuvering the two boys got into a position from which they could hear some of the conversation of the two rascals; but the way to the steamer was right under Snaggs’ eye, and Brandon dared not attempt it.