Horatio Alger - Nelson The Newsboy

"Then you won't tell me where I came from?"

"No; excepting that it was a good many miles from here. It wouldn't do any good to rake up old scores. If your father hadn't died of the shot, he would have been sent to prison for ten or fifteen years."

"What was the name of the man who shot him?"

"It won't do you any good to know that, either—he's dead and gone, too."

There was a pause, and the newsboy gave something like an inward groan. The revelation that Pepper had made was truly a shocking one, and the boy was so dazed and bewildered he could scarcely think. His father a burglar, and shot down while in the act of committing a robbery! What a degradation!

"I've told you all this for a purpose," went on the man. "Now I've got some more to tell you, if you'll promise to keep your mouth shut."

"What else is there?"

"Will you keep silent if I tell you?"

"Yes."

"And do you promise not to say a word of what I have just told you?"

"Why should I—it wouldn't be anything to my credit," answered Nelson.

"But I want you to promise."

"All right; I promise."

"That's good. I know if you give your word you'll keep it. Now, I've got a plan in my head to square accounts, so to speak, and git rich at the same time."

"What plan?"

"Well, you see, it's like this: There's a rich gent lives up near Central Park. I won't give you his name, but I don't mind telling you that he's a distant relative of the fellow who shot your father, and he used to help that other man in his dealings against your father. I don't know as he remembers your father now, but he's a man you ought to get square on, anyway."

"How?"

"I'm coming to that, my boy. This man is old and feeble and has something of an office in his library at home. There is a safe in the library, but it's old-fashioned and can easily be opened. In that safe the old man keeps thousands of dollars all the time, for it's too much for him to go back and forth to the bank, and he aint the one to trust anybody else."

Sam Pepper paused suggestively and looked Nelson full in the eyes. Then he began to whistle softly to himself.

"Do you mean that you think I ought to rob that safe?" questioned our hero.

"You won't have to do the job alone, lad; I'll be on hand to help you."

"But I—I never stole anything in my life."

"It won't be stealing, exactly. That man owes you something. If it hadn't been for him and his relative your father might have been rich and never got into any burglary. I have looked the ground over, and the job will be dead easy. There is a back alley and an iron fence that both of us can climb over without half trying. Then I can git a diamond cutter for the window glass, and the rest will be just as easy as wink."

"And if you are caught, what then?"

"We won't git caught, Nelson. The old man has only a niece living with him, a girl of seventeen or eighteen, and an old housekeeper who is half deaf. The rest of the help comes in the morning and leaves after supper."

There was another pause. Nelson sank beside the table, with his face in his hands. Suddenly he looked at Sam Pepper again.

"Did you say that man had robbed my father—I mean the man who shot him?"

"Sure he did, Nelson."

"Then perhaps my father wasn't a burglar, after all. Perhaps he was entering the house to get evidence against the man."

"No, he went in to—er—well, to steal, if you must have it straight."

"Sam Pepper, I don't believe you!"

"Nelson!"

"I don't believe you, so there! You won't tell me my name, or where I came from, or anything, and you are only trying to make out my father was a thief so as to get me to turn thief, too."

"I've told you the truth, lad."

"And I repeat I don't believe you. What is more, I won't help you in your plans of robbery. I've been honest so far, and I mean to remain honest. You ought to be ashamed of yourself for trying to make me a thief."

The newsboy had risen to his feet and, as he spoke, his face glowed with earnestness. Now Sam Pepper sprang up, his features full of baffled passion.

"How dare you talk to me, you miserable pup?" he roared. "I've a good mind to thrash you well for this! Haven't I clothed and fed you for years? And this is what I git for it! I've told you the truth about yourself, only I didn't paint your father as black as I might, not wishing to hurt your feelings. He was a burglar, and before he was shot he served two sentences in prison."

"I don't believe it—and I never will," retorted Nelson, but with quivering lips. "Where was this? Tell me, and I'll soon find out if it is true."

"I won't tell you a thing more—unless you promise to help me as you should."

"I won't help you—and that's the end of it."

"You owe me something for keeping you all these years."

"I don't believe you would have kept me if you weren't paid for it."

"I never received a cent—not a penny. You've got to pay me back somehow."

"Well, I am not going to do it by stealing," answered Nelson doggedly.

"Then how are you going to do it?"

"I don't know yet."

"I'm going to give this place up soon, and of course the living rooms will go, too."

"I can find another place to live."

"You want to git out of paying me that five dollars a week, don't you?" sneered Pepper.

"I can't pay five dollars. But I'll pay what I can. How much do you think I owe you?"

"A good deal—seeing that I've kept you ten years or longer."

"Didn't my father leave anything?"

"About forty dollars—not enough to keep you three months."

"He hadn't any property?"

"Nothing."

"Well, as I said before, I'll do what I can—when I am able."

"And you won't help me to–" Pepper paused.

"I won't steal—I'll starve first," returned Nelson, and taking up his hat, he unlocked the door, and walked away from the lunch-room.

When Nelson left the lunch-room he scarcely knew what he was doing. The conversation which had occurred had been an important one, but his head was in such a whirl that just now he could make little or nothing out of it.

He had no desire to sell papers,—indeed, he had no desire to do anything,—and all he did was to walk up the street and keep on walking until he was well uptown. Then he began to cross the city in the direction of Broadway.

At last he began to "cool off" a bit, and then he went over all that had been said with care. As he did this he became more and more convinced that Sam Pepper had not told him the truth concerning his parent.

"He is holding something back," he told himself. "And he has some object in doing it. He shall never make me a thief, and some day I'll force him to tell his secret."

"Hullo, Nelson! what brings you up here?"

The question was asked by a young man who carried a flat bag in his hand. The man was an agent for books, and the boy had met him many times before.

"Oh, I just came up for a walk," answered our hero. "How is business, Van Pelt?"

"Poor," answered George Van Pelt, as he set down his bag, which was heavy. "Haven't made but half a dollar so far to-day."

"That's no better than selling newspapers."

"I don't suppose it is, and you don't have to carry around such a bag as this, either. But I would have made more to-day if a customer hadn't tripped me up."

"How was that?"

"There was a young gent living near Central Park named Homer Bulson, wanted me to get certain French books for him. I got the books, but when I went to deliver them he refused to take them, saying they were not what he had ordered."

"Were they?"

"They were. I could make him take them, according to law, but to sue a man is expensive. But now I've got the books on my hands, and they cost me over three dollars."