Chapter III

While they were debating the question, Tom Murdock, a cousin of Ned, entered the office.

“Ah, Tom,” said Ned, “here we are; I had quite forgotten to inform our good uncle that you too were out of business.”

“Is it possible!” exclaimed uncle Joseph. “Both out of business? I hope you have not been foolish, Tom.”

“No, uncle, Tom is never foolish—one of your dignified boys—proper, and all that sort of thing,” replied Ned.

“My services were no longer required. You know I only supplied the place of another,” added Tom.

“You have been there three months.”

“Yes.”

“On thirty dollars a month!” added Ned, “and saved money at that. Tom will just fit your place, uncle.”

“Do you want a clerk, uncle Joseph?” asked Tom, meekly.

“I thought of having another; but it is very small pay,” answered the stock broker, a little nettled; for he had created the want only to save the reputation of Ned.

“I should be very glad to enter your service, even at a small salary. Anything is better than being out of business.”

“Right, Tom, right!” exclaimed the old gentleman. “The salary is four hundred, and you shall have the place.”

And Tom took the place, while Ned, instead of adopting his uncle’s excellent advice, moved down two flights at the hotel, rode out to Porter’s every day, and went to the opera every night.

In due time the legacy reached uncle Joseph, who placed Ned in full possession.

In another month a large gilt sign, bearing the “name and style” of a new firm, (E. Murdock & Co.,) astonished the mercantile world, and Ned was no longer out of business.

The dignity of the new firm—the “Co.” was merely a flourish of the artist’s pencil to give éclat to the thing—demanded that the senior partner should have a wife. Fortunately for the felicitous carrying out of Ned’s idea on this subject, things had for several months been progressing towards this event.

Our young merchant had paid his addresses to the daughter of a mercantile man, reputed to be wealthy; and now that he “had come to his possessions,” there was no obstacle to an immediate marriage.

A house in a fashionable street was procured; the cage being ready, the bird was caught, and Ned found himself in the full enjoyment of life. He was no nigger, and things went on swimmingly. Dinner parties, and tea parties, and evening parties followed each other in rapid succession.

Money flowed like water. Notes on three, six, and nine months were given, and Ned said the business was bound to prosper.

One half of his legacy only had been invested in his business at the commencement of the operation. Six, nine, and twelve months did the rest. But his housekeeping affairs absorbed the other half in less than six months. His wife was from a rich family, he reasoned, and must be supported in state.

At the end of those six months, when the first of the notes became due, Ned was not a little astonished to find that he had nothing to pay them with. He looked over his books to see where the ten thousand had gone to; it was only dust in the balance when weighed against his business and his family expenditures.

Bad debts and unfortunate speculations stared him in the face from every page, and Ned began to be a little troubled. A dim consciousness that he had been going too fast crept into his mind. It was a disagreeable reflection, and when he went home to dinner that day, he dodged round a corner to avoid meeting uncle Joe.

In the mean time, Tom had acquitted himself to the entire satisfaction of his uncle. The head clerk had left, and he had been installed in his place. Living within his means, indulging in no fashionable dissipations, the future was bright with hope.