Ahead of the Show Part 18

"I trust not, my dear young friend--I most sincerely trust that you have not."

"I am connected with Wattles' New York Comedy Company."

Dr. Ferguson gasped for breath.

"You are an actor--at your age?" he cried.

Al laughed, a little sarcastically, it is to be feared.

"It isn't quite as bad as that," he said.

"Ah!"

"I am only the advance agent."

"And what, may I ask, is an advance agent?"

Al explained.

"It is not, then, quite as bad as I thought," said his companion.

"It might be a heap worse," responded the boy, laconically.

"But still," went on the reverend gentleman, "a position such as that you hold may lead to something worse. You may in time--pardon me, if I hurt your feelings--you may in time become an actor."

"I guess not," said Al, who had some difficulty in repressing a smile.

"You cannot tell, my dear young friend; one wrong step leads to another, and once on the road to destruction, there is no knowing where or when the end will come."

"I hope I am not on the road to destruction yet," said Al, "and I feel pretty sure that I am not."

"Pride cometh before a fall, my dear young friend," said the doctor, impressively. "The moment you begin to be too sure of yourself, you have taken the first downward step. You may not be conscious of it, but it is taken."

Al began to s.h.i.+ft about uneasily in his seat.

"I know that what I say is not pleasant for you to hear," continued the old gentleman, "but I speak for your own good."

He then went on to deliver a long homily on the evils of theatrical life, and actually succeeded in tiring Al to such an extent that he fell asleep.

He was awakened by a voice shouting in his ear: "This ain't a sleeping car, young man. All off!"

Al leaped to his feet, only half awake. The car was empty of everyone except himself and a brakeman.

"Where are we?" he cried.

"In New York," was the reply. "Say, young fellow, you are a pretty sound sleeper."

"Well, I'm awake now," said the boy. "I'm sorry to have given you any trouble."

"Oh, that's all right. But you haven't lost anything, have you?"

"No. Why?"

"I don't see your baggage anywhere?"

"I didn't bring anything with me."

"That's all right, then. I was afraid that duck in the seat with you might have got away with your stuff."

Al laughed.

"That was a clergyman," he said--"the Rev. Dr. Ferguson."

"Reverend nothing," grinned the brakeman. "Say, young man, you must be from 'way back."

"Why?"

"Why, that fellow is one of the cleverest confidence men in the country."

"Do you know what you are talking about?" asked the boy, in amazement.

"You can bet I do. Oh, he has fooled sharper ones than you or I. You didn't lend him anything, did you?"

"I did not."

"Nor invest in green goods or anything of that sort?"

"No."

"Well, you are one of the lucky ones, then. When I saw him giving you so much chin music I thought he had you sure."

"Well, he didn't."

And Al left the car on very good terms with himself.

"Now, then," he mused, "I'll start in on the business that brought me here. I'll go to the nearest police station first. I don't know where it is, so to save time I'll take a cab."

As he thus ruminated, he mechanically felt in his pocket.

The next moment he uttered an involuntary exclamation.

His money was gone, and so were his watch, and the ring that had been presented to him in Boomville.

He had not, after all, escaped scot-free from the "Reverend David Ferguson."

CHAPTER XXVII.

AN UNLUCKY ERROR.

Al's self-esteem had suffered a severe shock.

He had considered himself quite competent to look out for "Number One," but this plausible swindler, the very first person he had met on the train, had easily succeeded in swindling him out of all the valuables he had about him.

He had lost about a hundred and fifty dollars in cash, his watch, which was worth at least another hundred, and the valuable diamond ring that had been presented to him on the stage of the Boomville Opera House.

He was alone and penniless in a great city at two o'clock in the morning, with a mission to perform that would almost necessarily involve the outlay of money.

While he stood at the entrance of the Grand Central Depot the brakeman who had addressed him on the car came along. Noticing the look of dismay on the boy's face, he said: "There's nothing the matter, is there?"

"I should say there was."

"What is it? That bunco man didn't get the best of you, after all, did he?"

"Rather."

And Al proceeded to inform the man of his loss.

His companion uttered a low whistle.

"Well, he did soak it to you, for fair," he said. "He don't generally play that game; as a rule he works the thing in a more artistic way than that. Well, he got the money, all the same. It was a pretty good haul, too."

"I don't see how he got that ring off my finger without waking me up," said Al, ruefully.

"Oh, he can do more than that," grinned the brakeman. "He'd manage to rob you of your eyeteeth if he happened to take a fancy to them. He's a daisy!"

"I wish you had warned me when you saw him talking to me on the train."

"I couldn't very well do that; but I kept an eye on you both, and if I had seen him up to any funny business, I should have spoken. Hasn't he left you any money at all?"

"Not a cent."

"Well, see here, I'll let you have a few dollars if you'll promise to return 'em as soon as you get funds."

"Of course I will, and I am very much obliged to you," said Al, surprised at this unexpected offer.

"Here you are, then."

And the man handed him a small roll of bills.

"Give me your address," said Al, "and I'll return this to you within a day or two, with something to boot."

"I don't want anything to boot. I'll write down my address, if you'll lend me a pencil a minute."

Al handed him a pencil. The man was about to write the address on the back of an envelope, when, to his amazement, his companion made a rush for a cab that stood at the curbstone, gave the driver a few hasty directions in a low tone, and then leaped into the vehicle, which immediately started off at a rapid pace. Before the brakeman could recover from his astonishment, the cab had turned a corner and disappeared.

"Well," gasped the man, "if I haven't been buncoed myself, and by a kid at that. I'll bet he and the other fellow were pals. And I never suspected it! Well, I'll get my ten dollars back if it costs me a hundred to do it. This is the last time I'll ever lend money to a stranger. I wish I could hire some one to kick me round the block."

The brakeman could scarcely be blamed for forming this opinion of Al, erroneous though it was. Appearances were certainly against the boy, and the reader is, perhaps, wondering if he had suddenly become insane or developed into a kleptomaniac.

The reason for our hero's strange action was this: Just as he handed the brakeman the pencil a carriage was pa.s.sing the depot, from the window of which peered the face of the very man for whom Al was seeking--Jack Farley.

There was no time for explanations; the carriage was going at a rapid rate. Al rushed out to the cab that stood at the entrance and said to the driver: "Do you see that carriage yonder?--the one that is just about to turn the corner? Follow it wherever it goes and I'll pay you well."

"Enough said!" the man responded.

As we have seen, the boy entered the cab, and was driven away.

"That brakeman will think that I am a thief, too, I'm afraid," Al mused. "Well, I can't help it; it will be all right to-morrow. But he is a good fellow, and I don't like the idea of being misunderstood in that way by him even for a few hours. There's no help for it, though; I couldn't afford to let Farley get away from me!"

The two vehicles kept at an even distance from each other until Tenth Street was reached. At the corner of that thoroughfare and Fifth Avenue the carriage in advance came to a sudden halt.

Al's driver stopped almost at the same moment.

"What shall I do now, sir?" he called out to his pa.s.senger.

"Go right ahead," the boy directed. "When you get to the spot, stop, if the other coach has not started again in the meantime; if it has, go on as long as it does."

In less than a minute later Al's carriage once more come to a standstill.

At the same moment a man leaped from the other carriage, advanced to the cab and threw open the door.

"What do you mean," he demanded, "by following my carriage? I have been onto you ever since you started. Who are you, and what do you want?"

The man was not Jack Farley; he did not resemble him in any way.

He was an elderly man, fas.h.i.+onably dressed, and had the appearance of one who was on his way home after a ball, or some other social function, with just enough wine on board to make him quarrelsome.

"What is your little game?" continued the man. "Come, out with it; I am going to know."

Al was decidedly embarra.s.sed.

"It is all a mistake," he stammered.

"That's too thin," said the stranger. "I'm onto you; you are a detective! Now, what are you shadowing me for?"

Al could not help laughing.

"I am no more a detective than you, sir," he said. "I told my driver to follow a certain carriage, and he has made a mistake; that's all there is to it."

"I made no mistake," interposed the driver, surlily. "This is the carriage you told me to follow."