“Rich!” echoed Tom. “We have all we can do to live.”
“He has given me a chance to peg in his manufactory, and paid me fifty cents a day, which is considerably below the regular wages in other establishments. If you call that helping us, then he has helped us.”
“That I call rather mean, since he has plenty of money.”
“So do I; but we never asked him for help. All I wanted was fair wages for my work.”
“Did you ever ask him to increase your small pay?”
“He got angry, and discharged me from his employment.”
“Money has evidently hardened his heart. What are you going to do?”
“I must try to find something else to do, or else go to the poor-house.”
“You won’t go to the poor-house. You don’t look like that kind of a boy. I wish I had John Simpson’s money and shop. I’d employ you at double his wages.”
“Thank you for your kind intentions, sir,” said Tom.
The tramp looked so far from being a capitalist, and, judging again from his appearance, his prospect of becoming a capitalist seemed so poor, that Tom did not gain much encouragement from his last words.
“At present I am quite unable to help you, but it may not be always so,” continued the stranger.
He reflected that a man’s generous feelings were of little account if he had no money.
“I see you want to go in,” said the tramp. “Don’t let me keep you. I think I’ll go and make a call on John Simpson.”
“You’ll find him at home, sir. That is, he was at home twenty minutes since.”
Just as the stranger was leaving, Tom, impelled by the thought he might some time want to secure further information from this man, who appeared to have met his father in California, asked him:
“Would you be kind enough to tell me your name, sir?”
“My name! What do you want of my name?” demanded the tramp.
“Except John Simpson, who will tell me nothing, I have never before met any one who knew anything of my father’s life in California. I might wish to meet you again and ask you more questions.”
“I will take care that you have a chance to meet me some time,” said the other, after a pause. “At present I prefer not to mention my name.”
“Then you may address your letter to Darius Darke, New York Post-office.”
“Yes; I don’t think you will forget that name. It isn’t my real name, of course. Sorry I haven’t got a card to offer you,” he added, with grim humor.