Chapter II
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The letter was from the attorney of Miss Mary Marker, a maiden aunt of Ned Murdock, formerly residing at the west. It contained the intelligence of the spinster’s death. The old lady, happening to have a fit of generosity when she made her will, had bequeathed to her graceless nephew the sum of ten thousand dollars.
Here was a godsend, and Ned leaped up six feet in the air, with astonishment and delight.
But the worthy stock broker was troubled; for although he was a broker, he was a good Christian, and had the welfare of his dissolute nephew near his heart. There was something about the youth that he liked, notwithstanding he went to the play and boarded at a fashionable hotel.
His only object was the reformation of the young man, whose ruin and premature decay were foreshadowed in his daily habits. His proposition to employ him in his own office was merely a stratagem to obtain a hold upon him.
This legacy seemed to step between him and the accomplishment of his benevolent purpose.
“What are you going to do with this money, Ned?” asked he with a troubled countenance; “I am named, as your guardian, you perceive.”
“Bah, guardian! I am twenty-one next week, uncle Joseph,” replied the young man, unable to conceal the elation the astounding intelligence had produced in his mind.
“True; but this legacy may be the ruin of you, Ned.”
“You are absurd, uncle.”
“I am sorry your aunt died so soon; I wish she could have been prevailed upon to live till you had come to the years of discretion.”
“If I had known she intended to remember me in her will, I should certainly have expressed my desire that she might have lived forever, or some such hyperbole.”
“What are you going to do, Ned? It is rather a serious question.”
“Time enough to decide it when I get the money.”
“Take my advice Ned; settle yourself down in some quiet position; get another clerkship; don’t go into business till you are more experienced in the ways of the world. You had better accept my offer, and take your first lesson in learning to live within your means.”
“Be an errand boy on four hundred dollars a year, when I have ten thousand dollars in my possession? Did they do so in old times?” and Ned bestowed a good-natured sneer upon his quiet old uncle.
“They learned to creep before they walked. If it will make any difference, I will give you the same salary you received at Green & Smith’s.”
“Couldn’t think of it, uncle Joseph. A thousand would not procure my services now.”
The stock broker sighed. Ned was as good as lost, in his opinion. There was no hope for him, and much as it troubled him, he saw no method of preventing the catastrophe.
For an hour longer, uncle Joe tried to prevail upon his wilful nephew to adopt a system of prudent living, and preserve his capital until a favorable opportunity occurred for investing it.
Ned was resolute. Visions of balls, operas, theatres, fast horses, and a rich wife, flitted before his excited imagination. The sum of ten thousand dollars appeared to be inexhaustible. In vain uncle Joe reasoned that its possession was only equivalent to an income of six hundred dollars. Ned was sure of being worth twenty thousand in five years, and fifty in ten. It never occurred to him that fast horses and the opera could not be supported without encroaching upon the principal.