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Updated: June 1, 2025
"I made a failure of it that time," muttered the shipping-clerk, as he slowly arose to his feet. "But we'll get even yet, and more than even, too!" Richard breathed a sigh of relief when he emerged once more upon the street. "I'm glad I found Norris out, any way," he said to himself as he hurried along. "I think I can safely put him down as a bad egg."
He did not like the manner in which the shipping-clerk had spoken of Frank and his family. "I did not think the Massanets kept boarders," continued Norris. "I thought they were too retired for that." "I am the only one, and am treated like one of the family." "Frank has got a sister, hasn't he?" "Yes." "Maybe that's the attraction," suggested Norris. "My landlady has a pretty daughter, too."
Stop that, Norris!" came a voice from the elevator; and the next instant Mr. Williams stepped into the room. "What do you mean by creating such a disturbance?" "Dare is trying to put up a job on me," began the shipping-clerk. "He told Mr. Mann that that order for Pittsburgh was sent down 0.K. and " "And so it was," replied Mr. Williams calmly. "No, sir; it was "
Norris had taken a tight hold of his shoulder. "You shan't go till you promise to keep the thing quiet," he replied grimly. For reply, Richard gathered himself together and gave the shipping-clerk a shove that sent that individual sprawling to the floor. Before Norris could regain his feet, Richard had unlocked the outer door, and was speeding down the stairs.
It was the duty of the shipping-clerk to check off the freight as it was brought ashore. Also, it was the law of steamboating that clerks took their meals on board the boat, if they were helping to unload her. Now, as Jim had food and a place to sleep when a Dubuque and Saint Paul steamboat was tied at the levee, all the meals he had to buy were those when no steamboat was in sight.
"You're mistaken," returned Norris, hardly knowing how to reply. "But it's only natural that you should stick up for your mother's boarders. They help support the family, I suppose." And with this parting shot the shipping-clerk hurried below. In the middle of the afternoon Mr. Mann sent for Richard and asked the boy to accompany him to an office on lower Broadway.
He applied for work as soon as he walked out on the levee. The place was the office of the steamboat company. He stated in an offhand way that he had had experience on the water-front in Chicago, Rock Island and Davenport. He was hired on the spot as shipping-clerk with the gratuitous remark, "If you haven't sense enough to figure, you are surely strong enough to hustle."
"So I did; but now we are up here we might as well stay awhile and have some fun. It's early yet." "It's not early for me," responded Richard. "I promised to be back by nine o'clock, and it must be near that now. Just give me my hat." For Norris had taken his guest's hat and placed it on a hook beside his own. For reply, the shipping-clerk pulled Richard down into a seat.
"Oh, you'll soon learn!" returned the shipping-clerk. "Come, sit down, and I'll give you a few points." "I don't care to learn," was Richard's firm reply. "I never gambled in my life, and I don't intend to begin now." "Say, Norris, what do you want to bring such a fellow up here for?" asked one of the players, with a scowl. "We were just having a jolly good game, and don't care to have it spoilt."
Hortense, before her marriage to Henry, the shipping-clerk, had been a very pretty, very pert, very devoted little stenographer in the office of the T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company.
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