Will Somers: The Boy Detective

"Got any opening in these diggin's for a feller of my size and good looks?" The speaker was a boy of some sixteen years of age, a well-built, athletic lad, the sinewy development of his limbs showing through more than one rent in his well-worn clothes. His claim to good looks was indisputable. A bright black eye gave character to a face of classical outline, straggling curls of dark hair hanging low over his olive-hued cheeks and brow, while his nose and mouth had all the fine curves of the Grecian type. "What do you want?" asked the gentleman addressed, in a curt tone. "Well, I ain't partik'lar," drawled the boy. "I want a job. Most anything will do. Say cashier, or head clerk." The merchant twisted himself around in his chair and looked at the speaker. The latter bore his sharp look unabashed, standing in an erect, easy attitude. "Suppose I don't want a cashier?" "Maybe then you'd give me a job to make fires and run errands." "Who told you I wanted a boy?" "A counter-jumper outside there. I axed him if there was room in this row for a smart young man, and he said he guessed you wanted a partner. So I jest stepped back to see if I wouldn't suit." A frown came upon the merchant's brow as he heard of this impudent action of one of his clerks. "Who told you this?" he sharply asked. "Now look ye here, mister," said the boy, impressively; "that's not my lay. I don't tell tales out of school. I wouldn't blow on a cat if I caught her stealing a mouse in another man's kitchen." "Get out of here then. I am busy and don't want to be bothered." "See here now," said the boy, leisurely seating himself in a chair. "You're not sayin' nothing about that job. You've got a dozen men out there in the store, and I don't see a boy in the shanty. Now you can't run a place like this without a wide-awake boy, and I'm jest the feller you want." "You have impudence enough to run it yourself," said the merchant, looking more closely at his importunate visitor. "Wouldn't be afeard to try," said the boy, saucily, putting to his lips a half-smoked cigar which he had all this time held in his hand, and taking a long whiff. "I've a notion I could make dry-goods spin amazing. Jest hand me the reins and I bet I put her through at two-forty." The merchant laid aside the papers which he had been examining. He pushed back his chair from the table and faced his visitor. He was a hale, handsome man of some fifty years of age, somewhat imperious in manner, but with a strong sense of humor in his face. He seemed to think that he had met an original character.

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