Unkown - "The High History of the Holy Graal"

Alexandre Dumas, Pere - "Ten Years Later"

Rudyard Kipling - "Verses 1889 1896"

Herman Hesse - "Siddhartha"

Two Boys and a Fortune

M >> Matthew White, Jr. >> Two Boys and a Fortune




Rex told the terrible tale of the robbery, of the awful night he had
passed riding back and forth across the river, and had got as far as
his falling asleep on the train when Mrs. Raynor appeared and
smilingly announced that time was up.

"Miles will tell you the rest, Roy," said Rex. "He's the best fellow.
I don't know what would have become of me if it hadn't been for him.
And Mrs. Raynor, too. When I get well they must all come to
Philadelphia and we'll give them the very best time."

There was a touch of his old self in the heartiness with which he
uttered these words. Roy's coming and comforting words had lifted a
heavy burden from his heart.

They left him to try to get to sleep again. Roy went down stairs with
Mrs. Raynor.

"I ought to go home at once and tell my mother about Rex," he said.

"Why not send a message and stay with him?" suggested the other. "We
should be very glad to have you. There is plenty of room in the house.
Or send word for your mother to come on. I know she must be anxious to
see her son."

Roy hesitated. He scarcely knew what to do. Then he remembered
Sydney's absence and reflected that the girls could not very well be
left alone. He decided to stay himself till Monday, and to send word
that Rex was all right now.

He hurried off to the station to write his dispatch and came back as
quickly to the Raynors'. He recollected that he had not yet seen the
Miles of whom Rex spoke, the fellow who could tell him the
continuation of his brother's adventures.

He asked Florence, whom he found on the lawn, where he could find
Miles.

"He's out in the field now," she replied, "digging potatoes. But it's
almost twelve. He'll be in then for his dinner. He just adores that
brother of yours."

"But who is he?" Roy persisted.

"Well, he hasn't told us his story yet. We took him on trust, and he's
turned out all right so far. But there he comes now."

"Excuse me," said Roy. "I'll go and see him." And he hurried off
around the corner of the house.

The next minute he stood face to face with the youth who is destined
to play a highly important part in the remainder of this tale.

CHAPTER XXV

MILES HARDING'S STORY

Miles knew Roy at once.

"This is Miles, isn't it?" said Roy in his pleasant way, and he put
out his hand.

"Yes, but wait a minute."

Miles hurried to the pump near the kitchen door. He gave his hands a
douse of water, dried them quickly on a roller towel in the woodshed,
and then came back to greet the brother of the boy of whom he was so
fond.

"You got the telegram all right then?" he said. "Rex was so weak when
he told me where to send it, I wasn't sure I'd get it quite right."

"I want to thank you for all you did for him," went on Roy. "He's told
me about it, except the details. He said you'd do that-- about what
happened to him after he got out of the train. But don't let me keep
you from your dinner."

"I'd rather talk to you than eat," said Miles frankly.

Mrs. Raynor appeared at this moment and compromised matters by
bringing Miles' dinner to him out on the side porch. Roy sat by and
listened to the recital, most modestly given, of the facts with which
the reader is already acquainted.

It was time for Miles to return to his work when it was finished, and
Florence came to summon Roy to their own dinner.

"Isn't he queer?" she said, referring to Miles. "He seems so quiet and
talks so well for a man who was-- well, a tramp. I don't know what
else you could call him. You ought to have seen the clothes he had on
when he first came. Mamma made him burn them."

"He looks as if he might have an interesting story to tell," commented
Roy.

"We'll get him to tell it to-night if your brother is well enough,"
said Mrs. Raynor. "He promised that we should hear it as soon as Rex
was able to listen too."

Roy took Rex's dinner up to him, and the twins had an hour to
themselves, during which Rex went more into detail concerning his
experiences with Harrington and his crowd. They compared notes on
Harry Atkins, and then fell to talking of Miles Harding.

"He's something more than a common tramp," Rex insisted. "He can read
a little and write some. Isn't it funny how much he thinks of me, when
I haven't done a thing for him? Mrs. Raynor lets him come up and sit
with me every evening when his work is done. Of course I didn't know
this till yesterday, when I came to my senses."

After the doctor's visit about three, Rex went to sleep and Roy played
a game of tennis with Florence.

"I don't want to seem glad that your brother is sick," she said, "but
it's awfully nice to have company. I get so lonely when Bert is away."

That evening they all assembled in Rex's room-- Mrs. Raynor was a
widow, so the family at home consisted only of herself and Florence--
and Miles, seated at the foot of the bed, told the story of his life.

"I don't know where I was born," he began. "The first thing I can
remember is living in a tenement house in New York, where I had to
sleep three in a bed with the two Morrisey boys. Mr. Morrisey was a
truckman, and there was five children of them, and I made six. I
always thought I was a Morrisey, too, till one day Jimmy, he got mad
at me, and told me I needn't talk so big because I was only living on
charity.

"I went to his mother and asked her about it, and she told me that it
was true, that I wasn't really her child, but that she thought as much
of me as if I was, and that there wasn't any charity about it. But I
wanted to know all about myself, and at last she said that I'd been
given to Mr. Morrisey when I was a wee baby by a friend of his who
couldn't afford to keep me and who made him vow that he'd never tell
where I came from.

"Jimmy only found it out by accident one night, listening to his
father and mother talking when they thought he was asleep. She said I
wasn't to feel bad about it; because they thought everything of me.

"But I did feel bad about it. It seemed too hard when the Morriseys
had all they could do to get along they should have one more mouth--
and that not a Morrisey one-- to feed.

"I studied as hard as I could at school, so as to try and get through
sooner and go to work and begin to pay them back, but when I was
twelve Mr. Morrisey was kicked to death by a horse and the next year
Mrs. Morrisey married a man who took her and the children out to
Dakota to live.

"She wanted me to go along, but I knew Mr. Rollings didn't like me,
and besides I wanted to stay East where there was some chance of my
finding out who my parents were. I got a place as cash boy in a
Japanese store and boarded with some people who lived across the hall
from where the Morriseys had their rooms.

"But Mr. Benton used to get drunk and when he was that way he'd beat
me, just for the fun of it, it seemed to me. Then when they cut down
the number of boys employed in the store and I couldn't find another
place right away, he growled so about my not paying my board that I
did my things up in a bundle one night and hid myself on a canal boat
down at the East River docks.

"The captain was awful mad when he found me after we had got clear up
the North River. He gave me a good thrashing and then said he was
going to drop me overboard. But he didn't and I stayed on board all
that season, driving mules and being sworn at and kicked and trounced
like any other boy on the canal. I sometimes wonder why I didn't wear
out.

"When navigation closed I was set adrift, and had a hard scrub of it
to get along for a time. I almost starved for a while in Albany,
trying to pick up odd jobs. Then I came near freezing to death.

"Finally I got a place as errand boy in a grocery store and kept that
till some money was missing and they said I took it. I never stole in
my life. Mrs. Morrisey brought me up too well for me to do that. But I
couldn't prove I didn't and I had to go. The man said I ought to
consider myself lucky I wasn't sent to jail.

"After that I had a worse time of it than ever. Whenever I applied for
a position they wanted to know why I had left my last place. And when
I told them, they wouldn't have anything to do with me.

"Then came the days when sometimes I thought I might as well steal, I
was suffering because I was accused of doing it. When I was very
hungry and saw chances of sneaking apples out of grocery-men's
barrels, it seemed as if I had almost a right to do it. But I never
did.

"Something always turned up to keep me from starving. Once a woman
stopped me in the street and gave me a dollar. She said I looked so
hungry she couldn't go by me without doing it.

"Another time I was taken sick in one of the parks, something like
Rex. I fell down in a kind of faint, and when I came to I was in a
hospital and I stayed there quite a little while.

"After I got out it was spring and I thought I'd try the country. I
didn't beg; only asked for work. Sometimes I got it; many more times I
didn't.

"Now and then if they didn't give me work they'd offer me milk or a
cup of coffee, so I managed to pull through somehow.

"At last I got back to New York. I'd been wanting to get there again
ever since the thought came to me one day that perhaps some friends of
Mr. Morrisey's might know something about the man who had given me to
him when I was a baby.

"With a good deal of trouble I found one of them. He was a bricklayer,
and he told me as near as he could remember the man who gave me to Tim
Morrisey was from Philadelphia, and that's all he knew.

"Then I wanted to go to Philadelphia.

"'But what good will that do you, Miles?' Mr. Beesley asked. 'You
can't find out any more there, nor as much, as you can here.'

"'No,' I told him, 'but if I'm there maybe somebody else'll find out
something from passing me in the street.'

"'That's an idea, sure enough,' he said, so I started for
Philadelphia, and that's how I came to fall in with Rex."

Miles finished his story with this word. It almost seemed as if he had
done it on purpose, planning for it, as it were. He always spoke the
name with a little pause before it, as if it were something sacred.

Rex had told him to call him by it the day before when he had started
in to address him as "Mr. Pell." All of Reginald's striving after
premature manhood had been left in that past which preceded his
experiences in the hotel at New York.

CHAPTER XXVI

IN WINTER DAYS

Miles's story had been listened to with the closest attention by all
the little party.

"It's just like a chapter out of a book," Florence whispered to Roy.
"I wonder if he'll ever find out who he really is?"

"But how did you come by the name Harding?" Roy inquired. "Weren't you
Miles Morrisey once?"

"Yes, but when they went away, and I got to having such hard knocks
from the world, I didn't want to drag the name down with me, and so I
thought Harding would suit me pretty well, and took it."

Rex seemed inclined to grow excited over the theme, so Mrs. Raynor
proposed an immediate adjournment.

"To-morrow is Sunday," she said, "and Miles can have a long day with
you."

In the course of this long day, the wanderer told Roy why he had been
so drawn to Rex.

"I'd seen lots of nice looking fellows like him," he said, "but they
always looked down on me and kind of kept off, as if they didn't want
me to touch them with my dirty clothes. But I had to touch Rex when he
fell over, and he didn't seem to mind it."

Rex flushed when Roy told him this.

"I'm afraid I didn't seem to mind because I was too far gone to mind
anything," he said. "But I do like Miles and would like to do all I
can for him."

Roy returned home Monday morning, and Mrs. Pell went out to Rex that
night. He improved rapidly, and within a fortnight was able to be
moved to Philadelphia.

It was pitiable to see the effect of the parting on Miles. The Raynors
had found him very capable and were anxious to keep him. There was no
reason why he should not stay, except his desire to be where Rex was,
and his quixotic notion that he might meet his father or mother should
he go to Philadelphia.

"Keep a look out for me, Rex," he said, "and if you hear of any
position you think I could fill, let me know."

Rex promised, and after he got home told his mother that when she
could make up her mind to completely forgive him for all he had done,
he wished that she would think of something they could do for Miles.

"I have forgiven you already, Reggie," was the reply. "I know that you
have suffered enough not to need any other lesson. Now, why not make
Miles a present of a complete outfit? Wouldn't he take it all right?
Then when he is properly fitted out you can invite him on here for
Thanksgiving day."

Rex talked over the idea with Roy and then they wrote to Mrs. Raynor
about it. The end of the matter was that they procured Miles's
measure, and sent him the things as a present from Rex.

The invitation for Thanksgiving was in the letter that accompanied
them.

The young fellow's gratitude was beyond the power of expression, and
over and over again he asked Mrs. Raynor if she thought it was right
for him to accept the invitation.

"Of course it is right," she told him. "They would not have asked you
if they had not wanted you."

His happiness seemed to shine out of every feature of his face when he
boarded the Philadelphia train Wednesday afternoon. Rex met him at the
station, and was surprised to see what a good looking fellow he made
when he was properly rigged out.

"Maybe I'll make some awful blunders," Miles confided to him on the
way to the house. "Remember I've never been with swell folks before."

"We're not swell," Rex laughed.

He had half a mind to let him know then and there where they got their
money, but decided that he wouldn't. That night he took his guest to
the theater, and the next day Sydney had a long talk with him.

His manners were much easier among the unaccustomed surroundings than
Rex had dared to hope they would be. Mrs. Pell was very much attracted
by him, and both girls declared he was "so interesting."

In his talk with him Sydney sought to draw out all the facts he could
about the Morriseys.

"That boy you had the fight with, Miles," he said-- "Jimmy, I think
you told Rex his name was-- did you never ask him any questions about
what he overheard that night?"

"No. Mr. Morrisey seemed not to want me to talk about it, and besides,
I never would have asked Jimmy after what had happened."

"But you'd ask him now, wouldn't you?" went on Sydney. "You say that
you heard his mother was dead. He seems to be the only person left
from whom you can get a clew."

"Yes, I'd ask him now if I had the chance," Miles admitted "But I
don't know just where he is. You see, I've lost track of the Morriseys
lately."

"But you could find it again couldn't you? Write to the place where
you heard they were last. Where was that?"

"Bismarck."

"Very good. Do that, and when you have found out all you can from
Jimmy, let me know."

Miles promised to attend to this, but since he had fallen in with Rex,
his desire to hunt up his parents seemed not as strong as it had been.
He went back to the Raynors enthusiastic over his visit, and talked of
it for weeks afterward.

Meanwhile Roy and Rex settled down to their school life. The change
made in Rex by his New York experience was quite noticeable. While
retaining all his dignity of manner, he was more thoughtful of the
feelings of others than he had been.

He worried a good deal at first about the opinion Scott Bowman must
have of him, and truth to tell Scott did feel a little sore over the
way he had been treated.

The two boys did not write or see each other till they met
accidentally in the street at Christmas time.

Rex saw Scott coming and grew red in spite of himself. There was a
chance, he felt, that the other might go by without speaking to him.
But Scott halted and put out his hand.

"Hello, Rex," he said, "you are a stranger."

And at these words a great burden was lifted from Reginald's mind.

The truth of the matter was, it was very difficult to keep at odds
with a fellow with the fascinating personality of Rex Pell, and now
since the recent change in him he was more attractive than ever. He
took Scott home to lunch with him, and related in detail his
adventures on his memorable trip.

"Where the fun in being 'tough' comes in," he concluded, "I don't
see."

At Christmas time Mrs. Pell had Mrs. Raynor and Florence in for a
visit.

"Has Miles heard from Jimmy Morrisey yet?" Rex inquired.

"No," Florence replied. "He didn't write till about three weeks ago."

"You'll let him come in and see us New Year's, won't you?" Rex went
on.

"Yes indeed, if you would like to have him."

Miles came for New Year's and brought the information that he had
heard from Jimmy Morrisey at last. He was a hall boy in a New York
hotel, and said that as near as he could remember the name he had
heard his father mention that night in his talk with his mother was
Darley.

Rex wrote the name down on a piece of paper and put it away to show to
Sydney on his return from his Florida trip, for his health had been
growing steadily poorer and Mrs. Pell had persuaded him finally to go
South with a friend for a while.

"You know he isn't really my own brother," Rex confided to Miles. "But
he's a distant relative. His father and mother died when he was very
little."

Miles was much interested on hearing this. It served in some way to
establish another bond between himself and the Pells.

"I'll let you know what Syd finds out about this as soon as he finds
out anything," Rex told Miles at parting.

Miles had begun to attend school. He had not had an opportunity to
study since leaving the Morriseys. He was naturally quick, and made
good progress.

"He'll know too much by spring to be put to garden work again," Mrs.
Raynor had said when she was in. "I hardly know what to do with him
then."

"Oh, don't worry about that," laughed Jess. "By that time he may have
found his parents and be a millionaire."

"How you talk, Jess," interposed her sister. "If he ever does find his
people, it doesn't follow that they will be wealthy. Indeed, he'd
probably never have been given to the Morriseys if his father hadn't
been too poor to support him."

Eva took a deep interest in the case. She was of a literary turn of
mind, and wove many a romance in her busy brain about the early
history of this strange youth, who seemed so extraordinarily gentle,
considering his rough bringing up.

Sydney came home just before the twins' vacation ended.

"Oh, Syd!" Rex suddenly exclaimed, that first evening as they were all
seated in the library, listening to Florida experiences. "Miles has
heard from this Morrisey boy."

"Well," replied Sydney, "did he learn anything of importance?"

"Yes, he found out the name his father and mother used when they were
talking about the man who brought Miles to them."

"And what was it?"

"Darley."

Sydney fell back in his chair and grew as white as a ghost.

CHAPTER XXVII

SYDNEY GOES ON A MYSTERIOUS EXPEDITION

The family were greatly alarmed at Sydney's collapse. Mrs. Pell had
fondly hoped that his Southern trip would be of permanent benefit to
him, and here he was breaking down on the first night of his return.

Not one of them associated his seizure in any way with the subject on
which they had been talking except Rex. He could not but recall a
somewhat similar attack, when Sydney had fainted in his office while
he (Rex) was telling Scott Bowman of their inheritance.

But Miles Harding's affairs had nothing to do with this. What did it
all mean? Rex asked himself, as he sped off for the doctor.

When he got back, Sydney had come to, but seemed to be suffering
severely. And yet when asked if he was in pain, he would shake his
head and beg so imploringly that they would leave him to himself, that
the fears of the family were intensified many fold.

The doctor was utterly nonplused. He prescribed a quieting potion, and
went away, promising to return again in the morning.

"And perhaps you had better humor him in his desire to be left alone,"
he said to Mrs. Pell. "But of course arrange to be near in case
another collapse occurs."

The household separated for bed that night with sober faces.

"Syd hasn't been like himself since Mr. Tyler died," remarked Roy,
lingering at the door of Rex's room.

Rex did not reply immediately. He stood looking at his brother
intently for an instant, then he put a hand on Roy's shoulder, gently
pulled him into the room and closed the door behind him.

"Sit down a minute, Roy," he said gravely; "I want to tell you
something."

"What is it? What makes you look so solemn, Reggie? Is it anything
about Syd?"

"Yes, it's about Syd. Something that happened last summer, and which
he told me not to tell; but it seems to me that I ought to tell now."

In a few words then, Rex related what he and Scott Bowman had
witnessed, adding an account of what Sydney had said to him when he
asked to have the doctor sent out of the room.

"It's queer, isn't it, Roy?" Rex added.

"Yes, but I can't connect it with the present case."

"Neither can I. That makes it queerer still. Perhaps you'd better not
say anything about what I told you."

"No, I shan't," and the boys sat quiet a while longer, discussing the
mystery of this affair in lowered tones.

Meanwhile Sydney in his room across the hall, was lying in his bed
with his eyes wide open staring at the ceiling. Now and then he passed
his hand across his forehead, on which the perspiration kept
gathering.

"It is Nemesis," he murmured over and over. "I have felt that it would
come, and now at last it has appeared, and through Rex, of all the
others!"

All through that night he remained thus wakeful. He watched,
helplessly, the gradual breaking of the dawn, knowing that he had not
slept a moment and feeling that he must have this physical ill to bear
in addition to the mental one which already weighed him down to the
earth.

But he had come to the turning point now. In some way this was a
relief, even though the prospect immediately ahead of him was such a
fearsome one.

He wished that he could go up to the office without seeing any of the
family, as he had done that other morning in Marley.

But he could not do this now. They would worry and send after him. He
must try and get through the ordeal of facing them as best he could.

He rose at the usual time, but before he had finished dressing there
was a knock at the door and Roy's voice wanting to know how he was.

"All right," he replied, and then, as his brother asked if he might
come in, he opened the door.

"All right!" exclaimed Roy, after one look at his face, "Oh, Syd!"

"It's only because I haven't slept," Sydney hastened to assure him.

"Then what are you getting up for?" Roy went on.

"I must go down town. I have that to do which will ease my mind, and
make me all right again, I trust."

The last words were added in so low a tone as to be scarcely audible.

"Oh, Syd, what is it? What is worrying you? Can't I help you in any
way?"

"No, Roy, you cannot now. Perhaps-- later-- I will need-- need your
pity."

"Pity! Oh, Syd, you do not know what you say."

"Don't, Roy. I have a hard task to perform; do not, I beg of you, make
it harder."

Roy said no more; he would not after this. He went back to his own
room and went over in his mind all that had befallen them since they
had been what the world called wealthy.

"Not one bit happier, though; no, not as happy," he added for himself.

At the breakfast table Sydney insisted that he felt plenty well enough
to go to the office.

"Can't you see, mother," he said at last, "that it is a matter of the
mind and not of the body. Let me have the opportunity of easing that,
and-- you will see the result."

But when he left the house he did not go at once to his office. He
stopped at the first drug store he passed, and walked up to the little
stand on which the city directory was kept.

He turned the pages to D, and then looked up Darley.

There were several of the name, and a frown contracted his brow. But
he took out his pencil and memorandum book, and made a note of the
various addresses. Then he went on, but soon turned into a street that
would not take him to the office. He boarded a car and rode off in the
direction of South street. In the course of twenty minutes he was
waiting for his ring to be answered at the door of a very modest
little house near the Baltimore tracks.

But after he had been admitted, he did not remain long inside.

"I must try another," he muttered, consulting his memorandum.

He tried several others, but with equal ill success. The quest seemed
hopeless.

"There may be nothing in it after all," he murmured. "But that does
not lighten my load here;" and he pressed his hand over his heart.

All that day he kept up his hunt, scarcely stopping to get a little
lunch at noon. Toward nightfall he called at an address on Seventh
Street next to the last on his list.

It was an odd looking house-- apparently a store, for there was a
regular shop window, but there was nothing in it but curtains that
screened off the interior, and no sign, and the door when he tried it,
was locked. But there was a bell handle close beside it, and this he
pulled.

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