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 passing 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 passenger.

"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, fashionably 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 embarrassed.

"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."

"You are wrong; the man in that carriage was not this gentleman. Remember, it turned the corner before we left the depot, so you lost sight of it for half a minute or so."

"That's so," admitted cabby.

"It had probably turned out of the street before we turned into it, and you, seeing this gentleman's carriage, supposed it to be the same, and followed it."

"I guess that explains it."

"Well, it doesn't explain it to me," said the aggrieved stranger. "I consider this affair an outrage, and I am going to have it investigated."

"Go ahead and investigate, then," said Al, losing his patience. "You are making a mountain of a mole hill."

"I am, eh? Well, you'll see whether I am or not. Cabman, I have your number."

"That's all right; keep it," growled the jehu.

"I shall keep it, and make good use of it, too. You will hear from me again."

And the man climbed back into his carriage, flushed almost as much with anger as with wine.