“Say? I say that if this young man wants a situation, I’ll engage him this very day to enter my counting-room.”
“I think he ought to give me the preference. What do you say, Tom? Will you accept a clerkship at a hundred dollars a month?”
“Thank you, gentlemen, both,” said Tom, bowing, “but the fact is, I’ve adopted a rich uncle, and I can’t make any arrangements without consulting him.”
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“NATHAN,” asked Mrs. Middleton, “have you ever heard anything of our old boarder, Tom Temple?”
“No, my dear, except that he went to California in the steerage, I believe. I suspect he was very destitute.”
“I am glad of it,” said Mrs. Middleton emphatically. “It does me good to see pride have a fall, and that boy was the proudest upstart I ever met.”
“He certainly had a great appetite, my dear, and was very particular about his accommodations.”
“To think of his insisting on a mattress! Really, Nathan, we were fools to give up to him.”
“Well, my dear, we got very high board for him.”
“Very true; I wouldn’t have stood his impudence otherwise. Squire Davenport’s family got disgusted with him. He put on his airs even with them. So he went in the steerage, did he?”
“I warrant he would have been glad to get back to our home, much as he turned up his nose at it.”
Here there was a knock at the door, and a minute later the servant entered, ushering in our hero.
“Good gracious!” ejaculated Mr. Middleton. “Is it you, Thomas?”
“Yes, sir,” said Tom; “here I am, alive and kicking. I didn’t think you’d remember me. How do you do, Mrs. Middleton?”
“I thought you were in California, Thomas,” said Mr. Middleton.
“We heard that you were reduced to going by steerage,” remarked Mrs. Middleton with spiteful triumph.
“You were misinformed,” said Tom coolly, “I went first-class, and returned in the same way.”
“Oh, indeed. I heard that you had a few hundred dollars left. You must have spent it all by this time.”
“You will doubtless be glad to learn that I have got my fortune all back,” said Tom, glancing mischievously at the faces of his friends, in which surprise contended with mortification.
“Quite so. The ship supposed to be lost has returned; Mr. Armstrong has recovered sufficiently to pay me back my ten thousand dollars, and the mining stock turns out to be good. Besides that I have been adopted by a rich man, who has made me his heir.”