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Such an errand as you propose would be little better than useless." Sharpman paused. "Well, what's your plan?" repeated Craft, impatiently. The lawyer assumed a still more confidential attitude. "Listen! Burnham died rich. His wealth will mount well up into the hundreds of thousands. He leaves a widow and one daughter, a little girl.
I guess we'll have to give up the idea of restoring you to your mother, and let you go back to work in the breaker again." "That'd be too bad," said the boy. "Don't do that; I couldn't stan' that now. Can't you see my mother again, Mr. Sharpman, an' get her to take me some way?" "It can't be done, Ralph. There's only one way to fix it, and that is to get a guardian for you.
The judge endorsed the papers and handed them to the clerk, and Sharpman walked up the aisle with Ralph to the door of the court-room. "I have business," said the lawyer, "which will keep me here the rest of the day. Can you find your way back to the station?" "Oh, yes!" "Here is something to pay your fare with;" offering a piece of money to the boy.
Then the old man went to bed, thinking that in the morning he would get Sharpman to prepare for him the papers that would be necessary to carry his plan into execution. He derived much pleasure from his dreams that night, for he dreamed of torturing poor Ralph to his heart's content.
"Perhaps so, madam," he said, "perhaps; they go with the boy. If we succeed in restoring your son to you, we shall give you these things also." "What else have you that he wore?" she asked, impatiently. "Oh! did you find the locket, a little gold locket? He wore it with a chain round his neck; it had his his father's portrait in it." Without a word, Sharpman placed the locket in her hands.
There was a noise in the outer room as of some one entering from the street. Sharpman did not hear it; he was too busily engaged in thinking. Rhyming Joe gave a quick glance at the room door, which stood slightly ajar, then, turning in his chair to face the lawyer, he said deliberately and with emphasis: "I say the boy Ralph is not Robert Burnham's son."
Then he arose and followed him; he did not know just why, but it seemed as if he must see him, if only to beg him to declare that the story he had just heard him tell was all a lie. And yet Ralph believed that Rhyming Joe had told the truth. Why should he not believe him when Sharpman himself had put such faith in the tale as to purchase the man's silence with money.
"Oh! you're good for twenty years yet," said Sharpman, heartily, taking him by the hand, and walking with him to the door. "A are you pretty well off for money? Would trifling loan be of any benefit to you?" "Why, if you can spare it," said the old man, trying to suppress his evident pleasure at the offer; "if you can spare it, it would come in very handy indeed."
"This is a peculiar case," responded the judge; "and I think we should have some other basis than this on which to act; some affidavit of facts." "I came prepared to meet that objection," said Sharpman. "I will now read, if the court please, a statement of the facts in the case."
Sharpman would go to Wilkesbarre. The evidence in the Burnham case would be closed. The jury would come into court and declare that he, Ralph, was Robert Burnham's son and it would be all a lie. Oh, no! he could not let that be done. His whole moral nature cried out against it. He must see Sharpman to-night and beg him to put a stop to so unjust a cause. To-morrow it might be too late.
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