Bound to Succeed: or, Mail Order Frank's Chances
When the train neared the terminus Frank took a good wash, put on a clean collar, and tidied up generally. Leaving the train he bought a satisfactory meal at a restaurant, and was ready for business.
Frank soon located the book concern in which Mr. Morton had invested his money. It occupied four gaudy offices, one of which was occupied exclusively by Mr. Morton. Frank had to wait his turn for an interview. While seated in the anteroom, he learned something of the business going on from the conversation of some callers there.
It appeared that the concern sold book outfits to canvassers on a conditional salary guarantee. From what Frank gleaned very few ever made good, so the chief revenue of the company came from the original outfit sale.
Finally Frank was called into Mr. Morton’s office. The latter looked him over with an urbane smile.
“Came in response to our advertisement for agents, I suppose?” he inquired.
“Not at all,” replied Frank. “It is solely on personal business. I came to see you, sir – about your old business at Riverton.”
Mr. Morton shrugged his shoulders impatiently, as though the reminder was unpleasant.
“Bills?” he growled out. “Thought I’d settled everything – sick of the whole business, and threw it up in the air for good. Go on.”
“Why,” said Frank, “I sort of represent the people who bought the salvage from the fire insurance folks.”
“I have nothing to do with that.”
“Among the debris there was a zinc box with some of your papers in it.”
“Yes, I remember,” nodded Mr. Morton. “Nearly all burned up, weren’t they?”
“No, sir. In looking them over I found some of your old customers’ accounts, and that like. I thought they might be valuable to you, so I came down from Greenville where I live to bring them to you.”
“You did?” exclaimed Mr. Morton with a stare, partly suspicious, partly surprised. “That’s queer.”
Frank said no more. He opened the suit case and removed its two neatly put up packages. One contained the private papers of Mr. Morton. The other contained the mailing lists and mail order system layout.
Frank placed the two parcels on the desk before his host. The latter chanced to open the larger package first. He carelessly ran over the lists and the accompanying literature.
“H’m,” he said rather irritably, “I’ve little use for that monument of my fool-killer experiment!”
Frank was relieved – in fact, pleased, to observe Mr. Morton contemptuously sweep aside the litter before him and inspect the second package.
This interested him. He sorted out quite a lot of bills and receipts.
“Guess I’m a careless business man,” he spoke at last. “That fire so discouraged me I just got out, bag and baggage. There’s some good, collectible bills here. Now then, young man,” he continued, facing squarely about on Frank, “don’t tell me you came way down here from Greenville with that stuff just out of courtesy and kindness.”
“I will tell you the whole story, if you have the time to listen to it,” replied Frank.
“Certainly – fire away.”
Frank recited his experience with the salvage from start to finish. He wound up with the words: “You can see, sir, very plainly that I have hopes of getting those lists. I have a little money, and I will be glad to buy them.”
Mr. Morton studied Frank in a pleased, interested way.
“Young man,” he said, “you have acted very honorably in coming to me the way you have. As to that mail order literature, cart it away. I don’t want it. I might sell the lists, if I had the time – I haven’t – so they are yours. And, look here, these bills – I’ll give you half of what you collect on them.”
“You will?” exclaimed Frank, doubly delighted. “I will gladly meet the trial for ten per cent.”
“No,” insisted Mr. Morton, “there’s some expense and trouble, you not living in Riverton. You’ll have to hire a rig to visit some of my former debtors. I’ve stated the proposition. Here, I’ll write you out an authority to act as my agent.”
Frank arose to leave the office half-an-hour later a satisfied and grateful boy. Mr. Morton had quizzed him considerably as to his future plans. He was down on the mail order business, for he had made a failure of it himself, but he said a good many enlightening things that at least warned Frank of the pitfalls in his business course.
“Please, one more word, Mr. Morton,” said Frank, taking up his repacked suit case – “about those apple corers of yours?”
“Whew!” cried his host with a wry grimace, “have I got to think of that grand flare-up again?”
“There’s a lot of them, you know, among the salvage?” suggested Frank.
“Yes, and there would have been a lot more if the fire hadn’t stopped returns,” declared Mr. Morton. “That was a bad investment.”
“Did you patent the apple corer Mr. Morton?” asked Frank.
“No – yes – my attorney filed the caveat, I believe. I don’t think we ever completed the patent transaction, and of course I shan’t throw away any more good money on it.”
“I was thinking,” said Frank, “that with a little modification – improvement, you know? maybe it might be made to work satisfactorily.”
Mr. Morton made such an excited jump straight towards his young visitor that Frank was rather startled.
“Young man,” he said, very solemnly, “if you want me to lose all the really profound admiration I feel towards you for the business-like way in which you have managed things, don’t, for mercy’s sake, tell me that you have been bitten, too, with the fatal, crazy, irrational dream that you want to invent something!”
“Why,” said Frank, with a smile, “is it as bad as that?”
“Worse!” declared Mr. Morton, with a comical groan. “Get the patent bee in your bonnet, and you’re lost, doomed!” in a mock-hollow tone observed Mr. Morton, shaking Frank by the arm. “Drop it, drop it, or you’re on the rocks.”
“Then,” suggested Frank, “you won’t mind if I experiment with the corer?”
“Mind? I wish you’d sink it. I wish I could forget the money I lost in it. It’s yours, though, if you want it, only never mention that an old dreamer of my name ever got dazzled with a toy like that. Stick to the straight business line, lad – mail order, if you must, but cut off the frills. Don’t wreck your ship on gewgaws that are a delusion and a snare.”
Frank left the office of the book concern in a happy, hopeful mood. Everything had come out beyond his fondest anticipations. He was glad he had been truthful and honest in the broadest sense of the word.
He went back to the railroad depot and left his suit case in the check room. A return train for Greenville left at two o’clock, but Frank wanted to see the city. Outside of that, he wished to visit one or two large mail order houses.
Frank employed six hours to grand advantage. He came to the depot feeling that the money he had spent was a good investment.
After a light lunch he sat down on a bench in the waiting room. He counted over the little pile of bank notes in his pocketbook with a pleased smile.
“Just think,” he reflected, “I expected to pay Mr. Morton twenty, maybe thirty dollars for those lists and the routing outfit, and here I am going back home with practically all my original capital. Then, too, the collection of those bills at Riverton: why, it just seems as if fortune has picked me out as a special favorite.”
Frank found the train he was to take would not leave for over an hour. It was already made up and standing on its track, but still locked up and unlighted. Frank went outside and strolled up and down the dark platform alongside the train.
He was full of pleasing, engrossing thoughts, and did not notice a large, shrewd-eyed man who had followed him from the waiting room.
Frank was just returning to promenade back from the front end of the train, when a sharp rustle made him turn half around.
Instantly a pair of brawny arms were stretched out towards him. Both of his hands were imprisoned in the grasp of a sprawling fist.
“Hey, keep quiet, or I’ll smash you,” spoke a harsh voice. “Now then, young man, I want that money you’ve got in your pocket.”
CHAPTER XI
A FRIEND IN NEED
“Hands off!” cried Frank.
His assailant laughed coarsely. He had Frank firmly in his grasp. Pushing him against the steps of one of the coaches, still gripping his two wrists in one hand he bent him back flat.
No one was in sight down the long, poorly-illuminated passenger platform. Frank at once guessed that the fellow had seen him counting over his money in the waiting room and had followed him to this spot.
Frank twisted his lower limbs to one side. His assailant was trying with his free hand to reach the pocket in which he had seen Frank place his little cash capital. Frank’s movement disconcerted the would-be thief. He grew angry as his captive wriggled onto one side, holding his pocket pinned up against the car step.
“Hi, you, turn over,” growled the fellow.
He gave Frank a jerk and then slapped him hard against the side of the head. He managed to thrust his hand into his pocket containing the money.
“Ouch!” he yelled, just as his eager fingers touched the roll of bank notes. “Zounds! who did that?”
Whack – Frank caught this sound, preceded by the air-cutting whistle of some swiftly-directed object.
Whack – whack! the sound was repeated. Frank was free. His assailant had relaxed his grasp. His hands were now busy warding off mysterious blows in the face.
Frank darted to one side, his precious savings clasped by one hand. He stared in wonder.
Some one on the roof of the front passenger coach was leaning over its rounding edge. He was armed with a jointed piece of iron. This he plied whip-fashion. Twice its end had struck the robber’s face, leaving two great red welts.
Then a spry, nimble form dropped from the car roof to the platform. Frank made out a boy about his own age. He was dressed wretchedly, and was thin and weak-looking, and his face was grimed, but he must have had pluck, for, running straight up to the would-be thief, he plied the weapon in his grasp like a flail.
A sharp blow made the ruffian roar with pain. Holding a hand to his eye, he retreated down the platform, fairly beaten off.
“There’s a police officer,” said Frank suddenly, noticing a man wearing a uniform come running down the platform from the direction of the waiting room.
“Oh, pshaw!” ejaculated his rescuer, springing nimbly to the platform of the nearest coach.
“Hold on, hold on,” cried Frank – “I want to thank you, I – ”
But his mysterious friend had sprung across the car platform in a jiffy. He was swallowed up in the darkness beyond.
“What’s up?” hailed the policeman, running up breathlessly.
“A man tried to rob me,” explained Frank.
“Thought I made out a struggle. Did he get anything?”
“No.”
“Where did he go?”
Frank pointed towards the fan-shaped network of tracks melting into the gloom of the switchyards.
The policeman ran in that direction. Frank did not accompany him. He did not believe the officer would catch the thief. Besides, Frank was more interested in the strange young fellow who had done him such good service in his time of need.
Frank stepped up on the coach platform and peered up and down the sidings near by. His rescuer was nowhere in sight. Frank was sorry for this. The boy had struck him as a hard-luck object. His manifest reluctance against being seen by the officer suggested something sinister about him.
Frank stood waiting for the return of the policeman, a vivid picture of his rescuer in his mind. The boy had worn a cap pulled far down over his eyes. He seemed young, yet Frank recalled that he wore a moustache.
“I’d like to give him something for saving me the loss of all that money,” said Frank. “The poor fellow looked as if he needed it. Any trace of the man, sir?”
“No,” answered the policeman, coming back from a fruitless search. “Better keep nearer the lights, young fellow. All kinds of rough characters hang around here, on the lookout for somebody to rob.”
Frank walked with the policeman to the depot rotunda. He stayed outside, however. Once or twice he walked the whole breadth of the rotunda, peering down the passenger tracks and wishing he could find the boy who had beaten off the thief.
“There is some one now,” suddenly exclaimed Frank to himself.
He made a dash down a lonely platform and ran across a couple of tracks.
“Yes, it’s him,” declared Frank. “Hey, just a minute. Why, what are you running away from me for?”
The person Frank was after had started up quickly at the first hail. Frank overtook him, cornering him where some milk cars blocked the way south.
The strange boy braced back against the side of a car, pulled his cap down further over his eyes, and said.
“Want me?”
“Sure, I want you,” cried Frank spiritedly. “First, to shake hands with you and thank you for your bravery in my behalf.”
“Oh, that wasn’t anything,” observed the strange boy.
“No, only the saving of all the money I’ve got in the world,” retorted Frank.
He shook the boy’s hand warmly. The latter at last slightly returned the hand pressure, but kept looking about him furtively and uneasily.
“By the way,” said Frank, “what was that you hit that man with?”
“A loose-jointed ventilator slide bar I found on top of the coach.”
“And, if I may ask, what was you ever doing perched up there?”
“Well, if you must know, I was waiting for the train to start out. In fact,” confessed the speaker in a low, constrained tone, “beating my way, stealing a ride.”
“Where to?” asked Frank.
“Oh – anywhere, anywhere away from the city.”
The boy said this in such a forlorn way that Frank felt there was some pathetic cause for the despair expressed.
“You ran away from the policeman, too,” suggested Frank.
“Yes, he wouldn’t have much use for my kind,” observed the boy.
Frank was silent for a moment, intensely studying as far as the dim light would allow the figure and face of his companion.
“What’s your name?” he asked suddenly.
“My name – oh,” sort of stammered the boy, “why, it’s Markham.”
“Well, Markham,” said Frank very kindly, placing a gentle hand on the lad’s arm, “you and I should be good friends. Don’t edge away from me. You say you were trying to get out of the city. Had you no idea of where you were bound for?”
“Nowhere, but the country. Some place where I’d be safe – I mean where they couldn’t find – that is, oh, just to get to some quiet little country town where I could get work.”
“I’ve got the town and I’ll guarantee the work,” cried Frank heartily, slapping Markham on the shoulder. “See here, no secrets between friends now. You’ve got no money, or you wouldn’t be riding on car tops.”
“That’s true enough,” admitted the boy, forcing a laugh.
“And maybe you’re hungry.”
There was no reply to this, but Markham’s eager eyes strayed in the direction of the lighted waiting room and its gleaming coffee tank and polished lunch counter.
“Come on,” urged Frank, keeping up a cheery, good-fellow air. “I’m ready for a bite, too.”
Markham held back as Frank tried to pull him along with him.
“See here – ”
“Newton – Frank Newton, that’s me.”
“Well, I can’t go with you. In the first place, I’m a sight for respectable people. In the next place,” went on Markham, “there’s some people I don’t want to risk meeting.”
Frank reflected for a moment or two.
“Will you stay here for five minutes till I come back?” he asked.
“Why, yes, if you want me to,” was the reply.
“All right. Be sure, now.”
Frank was gone less than the five minutes. He returned with a little tin pail holding a pint of hot coffee, a picnic plate containing two sandwiches, a piece of pie and some doughnuts.
“There, try that,” he said, placing the things on a bumper post.
“Say,” choked up Markham – but Frank strode away, whistling to himself. He did not approach Markham until every vestige of the lunch had disappeared.
“That’s the first square meal I’ve had for two days,” said Markham in a grateful, contented tone. “Say, you’re good.”
“Am I?” smiled Frank. “I’m good for your railroad fare to where I live, and a job right on top of it for you, if you say so.”
“Do you honestly mean that?” asked Markham, almost solemnly, his voice quite tremulous.
“Every word of it,” declared Frank. “I live at Greenville. It’s about a hundred and fifty miles down state. Say the word, Markham. I can see you’re in trouble or distress of some kind. I’m not prying to find out what it is. I only want to show what I think of you for saving my money, and maybe my life with a courage that has got to belong to a first-class fellow.”
Markham bowed his head as if in deep thought. Frank saw a tear fall to the platform. Finally his companion spoke again.
“If you will advance my fare,” he said, “I’ll pay you back first money I earn.”
“That’s a bargain,” said Frank. “Come on. We’ll buy your ticket right now.”
“No,” demurred Markham, holding back in a timorous way. “You get both tickets. I’ll be somewhere on the train. I’d rather sort of hang around the smoker and the platforms till we get beyond the city limits.”
“All right,” said Frank.
He had a vague idea in his mind that Markham was afraid to show himself publicly in the city, for some reason or other. Frank even speculated as to the possibility of Markham being disguised. He looked, acted and talked like a boy about his own age. The moustache, however, suggested that he was a young man of about twenty.
Frank made his new acquaintance promise positively he would be on the train. He went back to the depot and bought another ticket to Greenville. He was somewhat anxious and impatient until the train started up.
There was a first stop at the limits of the city. Just as the train steamed ahead again, some one entered at the rear door of the coach.
“Hello – good,” exclaimed Frank, as Markham quietly sat down in the seat beside him. “Why – ”
Frank paused there, staring at his fellow-passenger. Markham had washed the grime from his face. He no longer wore the cap pulled down over his eyes. Looking bright as a dollar, he smiled, pleasantly.
“Pretty grimy, wasn’t I?” he laughed.
“Why, yes,” stammered the puzzled Frank, “but say – what has become of your moustache?”
CHAPTER XII
A BOY WITH A MYSTERY
The boy who called himself Markham flushed scarlet at Frank’s sudden words. His hand went with a quick, nervous movement to his upper lip. He looked dreadfully embarrassed.
“Never mind,” said Frank abruptly, trying to make it easy for the young fellow. “You look better without it.”
Markham had gained time now to cover his confusion. He swallowed a lump in his throat and smiled feebly.
“You see,” he stammered somewhat, “that wasn’t a real moustache – that one I’ve dropped.”
“Oh, wasn’t it?” said Frank.
“No. How I happened to have it was this,” explained Markham, rather lamely, but with apparent truth. “See?” and he produced from a pocket two false moustaches and as many small goatees. “Fact is, I wanted to earn some money. I saw a peddler selling those things on a street corner. They went like hot cakes. I asked him where he bought them. He told me, said he had taken them up only temporarily to make a little pocket money. He was nearly sold out, and offered me about a dozen of them for a quarter. I sold nearly all of them, and then went to the address he gave me to stock up again. They wouldn’t sell under a gross – three dollars and sixty cents, I think the price was. I didn’t have that much, so my scheme fell down.”
Markham now took a printed circular from his pocket, as if to verify his statement. Frank glanced over it with increasing interest. It advertised a city firm supplying street peddlers with all kinds of goods.
“Yes,” said Frank, “I noticed a man selling these same articles on a street corner. It’s a pretty catchy novelty with boys and young men.”
“It is, for a fact,” declared Markham. “Look here: did you ever see ‘Teddy’s Teeth?’ That’s an old novelty – look.”
Markham produced and put in his mouth a row of false teeth, welted the reverse side of a moustache, placed it on his upper lip, a minute black dab of hair on his chin, and turned for inspection to Frank.
The latter laughed heartily. The transformation from Markham’s natural face was immense.
“You have no idea how those things catch people the first time they see them,” said Markham. “I’ve noticed that fellows from the country buy best. Say, if I had a gross of them, I bet I could sell them in two days, down your way.”
“I think you could, too, Markham,” replied Frank, “and you have set me thinking on an entirely new business proposition. Can I keep this circular?”
“Surely, if it’s any use to you.”
“It may be,” said Frank, “in fact, I think I shall order a gross as soon as I get home, just to experiment on.”
“Going peddling?” insinuated Markham.
“Why, I’ll tell you,” answered Frank. “Settle down comfortably, and we’ll chat a little. It will do me good to talk out what’s continually on my mind. More than that, I shouldn’t wonder if you, with all your experience, could give me some very valuable points. The long and short of it is, I am going into the mail order business.”
“Oh!” said his companion wistfully, “isn’t that grand.”
Frank told his new friend all about himself, his business and his hopes and plans. The other listened with great attention. When Frank had finished talking, Markham showed by his expression of face that he considered him a pretty smart business boy.
“If you can afford to hang around with me till I get my bearings,” added Frank, “I’ll guarantee you a comfortable home anyway, and good money if you know how to earn it.”
Markham’s eyes grew big with excitement. Then his face fell, as he said:
“I’d like nothing better in the world, but business men don’t hire strangers without a recommendation. I can give none. I’ll be square with you. My name isn’t Markham at all. I can’t tell you my real one until maybe a long, long time. I wore that moustache partly as a disguise.”
“Well, all that is your business, Markham,” said Frank.
“I know that, but it must look suspicious to you. If I told you that I am leaving the city to get away from some one who is hunting me, would you feel like trusting me much?”
Frank took his companion’s hand in his own and looked him straight in the eyes.
“Markham,” he said, “I am willing to put entire confidence in you. I owe you that much, surely. Your secrets are not my business, I would like to ask one question only: You haven’t run away from home, have you?”
“I have no home,” answered Markham in a subdued tone.
“An orphan?” insinuated Frank, gently.
“No, my father is living. He is in the Philippines. He will be out of service next January. All I am waiting for is for him to get back to this country to right my wrongs.”
“Don’t worry about it, Markham,” said Frank, observing deep sadness and distress shadow the bright face of his companion. “You come home with me. I’ve got so good a mother she will welcome you gladly.”
“But I want to work,” said Markham.
“Haven’t I got work waiting ready for you, and lots of it, too?” demanded Frank.
“That’s so, is it?” said Markham, brightening up. “My! to be away – away from the city in a quiet, beautiful town. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! You are the first real friend I’ve found in six months, and – I can’t help it.”
“That’s right – get rid of all your old troubles,” said Frank, and he did not think the less of his new friend because he had a good, solid cry. “There’s nothing but sunshine ahead for you, if I can help you any.”
Frank warmed to the boy as they continued their conversation. A dark spell seemed to lift from Markham’s spirit, each mile accomplished away from the great city that appeared to hold some secret, haunting dread for him.
“Greenville,” announced Frank heartily at length – “and home.”
The hour was late, the streets deserted, but, as they strolled away from the little railroad depot, Markham walked like a person in some rapt dream. He drew in great luxurious breaths of the flower-perfumed air. He viewed pretty moonlit lawns and gardens as if he were looking at some fascinating picture.
“Like it, do you?” smiled Frank.
“I love the country. I always did,” replied Markham. “This is just grand to me. Look here, now,” he continued, “you had better let me stow myself in some friendly haystack or under some hedge till morning. Don’t disturb your mother to-night about me.”
