Chapter XLII Dan, the Newsboy by Jr. Horatio Alger
Conclusion
Six years rolled by, bringing with them many changes. The little family on Madison avenue kept together. Mrs. Vernon was never happier than now. She had a hearty love for young people, and enjoyed the growth and development of her niece Althea, and Dan, whom she called her nephew and loved no less.
Dan is now a young man. He completed his preparation for college, and graduated with high honors. He is no less frank, handsome, and self-reliant than when as a boy he sold papers in front of the Astor House for his mother’s support. He looks forward to a business life, and has accepted an invitation to go abroad to buy goods in London and Paris for his old firm. He was, in fact, preparing to go when a mysterious letter was put in his hands. It ran thus:
“Mr. Daniel Mordaunt:—I shall take it as a great favor if you will come to the St. Nicholas Hotel this evening, and inquire for me. I am sick, or I would not trouble you. Do not fail. I have to speak to you on a matter of great importance.
“John Davis.”
“John Davis!” repeated Dan. “I don’t know of any one of that name. Do you, mother?”
“I cannot think of any one,” said Mrs. Mordaunt. “I hope you won’t go, Dan,” she added, anxiously; “it may be a trap laid by a wicked and designing man.”
“You forget that I am not a boy any longer, mother,” said Dan, smiling. “I think I can defend myself, even if Mr. Davis is a wicked and designing person.”
Nevertheless Mrs. Mordaunt saw Dan depart with anxiety. To her he was still a boy, though in the eyes of others an athletic young man.
On inquiring for Mr. Davis at the hotel, Dan was ushered into a room on the third floor. Seated in an arm-chair was an elderly man, weak and wasted, apparently in the last stages of consumption. He eyed Dan eagerly.
“You are Daniel Mordaunt?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Son of Lawrence Mordaunt?”
“Yes. Did you know my father?”
The old man sighed.
“It would have been well if he had not known me, for I did him a great wrong.”
“You!—John Davis!” said Dan, trying to connect the name with his father.
“That is not my real name. You see before you Robert Hunting, once your father’s book-keeper.”
Dan’s handsome face darkened, and he said, bitterly:
“You killed my father!”
“Heaven help me, I fear I did!” sighed Davis—to call him by his later name.
“The money of which you robbed him caused him to fail, and failure led to his death.”
“I have accused myself of this crime oftentimes,” moaned Davis. “Don’t think that the money brought happiness, for it did not.”
“Where have you been all these years?”
“First, I went to Europe. There I remained a year. From Europe I went to Brazil, and engaged in business in Rio Janeiro. A year since I found my health failing, and have come back to New York to die. But before I die I want to make what reparation I can.”
“You cannot call my father back to me,” said Dan, sadly.
“No; but I can restore the money that I stole. That is the right word—stole. I hope you and your mother have not suffered?”
“We saw some hard times, but for years we have lived in comfort.”
“I am glad of that. Will you bring a lawyer to me to-morrow evening? I want to make restitution. Then I shall die easier.”
“You might keep every dollar if you would bring my father back.”
“Would that I could! I must do what I can.”
The next evening Davis transferred to Dan and his mother property amounting to fifty thousand dollars, in payment of what he had taken, with interest, and in less than a month later he died, Dan taking upon himself the charge of the funeral. His trip to Europe was deferred, and having now capital to contribute, he was taken as junior partner into the firm where he had once filled the position of office-boy.
Tom Carver is down in the world. His father had failed disastrously, and Tom is glad to accept a minor clerkship from the boy at whom he once sneered.
Julia Rogers has never lost her preference for Dan. It is whispered that they are engaged, or likely soon to be, and Dan’s assiduous attentions to the young lady make the report a plausible one.
John Hartley was sentenced to a term of years in prison. Harriet Vernon dreaded the day of his release, being well convinced that he would seize the earliest opportunity to renew his persecutions. She had about made up her mind to buy him off, when she received intelligence that he was carried off by fever, barely a month before the end of his term. It was a sad end of a bad life, but she could not regret him. Althea was saved the knowledge of her father’s worthlessness. She was led to believe that he had died when she was a little girl.
And now the curtain must fall. Dan, the young detective, has entered upon a career of influence and prosperity. The hardships of his earlier years contributed to strengthen his character, and give him that self-reliance of which the sons of rich men so often stand in need. A similar experience might have benefited Tom Carver, whose lofty anticipations have been succeeded by a very humble reality. Let those boys who are now passing through the discipline of poverty and privation, take courage and emulate the example of “Dan, the Detective.”