Rough and Ready

"As to salary I shall for the present give you the same you have been earning by selling papers,—that is, eight dollars a week. It is nearly double what I have been accustomed to pay, but that is of no consequence. Besides this, I will give you two hundred dollars to add to your fund in the savings-bank, increasing it to five hundred."

"You are very, very kind," said Rufus.

"I owe you some kindness," said Mr. Turner. "There are other ways in which I shall find an opportunity to serve you. But of that we will speak here-after. When do you want to come?"

"Whenever you think best, sir."

"Then let it be next Monday morning, at nine o'clock. James will remain a week or two, till you get a little familiar with your duties. And now, my young friend, this is all the time I can spare you this morning. Good-by till Monday."

Mr. Turner shook hands with Rufus, and the latter left the office with the strange feeling which we always have when a great change is going to take place in our course of life. He was about to bid farewell to the life of a newsboy, and enter upon a business career in Wall Street. He could not help feeling a thrill of new importance as he thought of this, and his ambition was roused. Why should he not rise to a position of importance like the men whom he had heard of and seen, whose beginnings had been as humble as his own? He determined to try, at all events.

He returned to Miss Manning to acquaint her and Rose with his good fortune. The seamstress seemed quite impressed with the news.

"Who knows what may come of it, Rufus?" she said. "Some day you may be a rich man,—perhaps president of a bank."

"Which shall I be, Rose, a bull or a bear?" inquired Rufus, playfully.

"You can't be a bull," said Rose, positively, "for you haven't got any horns."

"Then I suppose I must be a bear," said the newsboy, laughing.

So Rufus ceased to be a newsboy, and here appropriately closes the story of "Rough and Ready; or, Life among the New York Newsboys." But a new career dawns upon our hero, brighter than the past, but not without its trials and difficulties. Those who are interested to hear of his new life, and are curious to learn what became of Mr. Martin, will find the account given in a subsequent volume, for next Christmas, to be called a "Rufus and Rose; or, The Adventures of Rough and Ready." Before writing this, however, I propose to publish, as the next volume of this series, the experiences of one of the newsboy's friends, under the title of

Ben, the Luggage Boy;or,Among the Wharves