Part 25 (2/2)
”At a railroad ticket office not far from the Old South Church.”
”Do you know if he bought any ticket?” asked Ebenezer, anxiously.
”Yes,” answered Herbert. ”I overheard him purchasing a ticket to Chicago.”
Ebenezer groaned, and his face seemed more and more wizened and puckered up.
”It is as I thought!” he exclaimed, bitterly. ”My own son has robbed me and fled like a thief, as he is.”
Herbert was shocked, but not surprised. He didn't like to ask particulars, but Ebenezer volunteered them.
”This morning,” he said, ”I foolishly gave Eben a hundred dollars, and sent him to Boston to pay for a bill of goods which I recently bought of a wholesale house on Milk Street. If I had only known you were going in, I would have sent it by you.”
Herbert felt gratified at this manifestation of confidence, especially as he had so recently been charged with robbing the post office, but did not interrupt Mr. Graham, who continued:
”As soon as Eben was fairly gone, I began to feel sorry I sent him, for he got into extravagant ways when he was in Boston before, and he had been teasing me to give him money enough to go out West with. About noon I discovered that he had taken fifty dollars more than the amount I intrusted to him, and then I couldn't rest till I was on my way to Boston to find out the worst. I went to the house on Milk Street and found they had seen nothing of Eben. Then I knew what had happened. The graceless boy has robbed his father of a hundred and fifty dollars, and is probably on his way West by this time.”
”He was to start by the three o'clock train, I think,” said Herbert, and gave his reasons for thinking so.
Ebenezer seemed so utterly cast down by this confirmation of his worst suspicions, that Herbert called Mr. Melville, thinking he might be able to say something to comfort him.
CHAPTER XIX. EBENEZER GRAHAM'S GRIEF.
”How much have you lost by your son, Mr. Graham?” asked George Melville.
”Nearly two hundred and fifty dollars,” groaned Ebenezer, ”counting what I paid in the city to his creditors, it is terrible, terrible!” and he wrung his hands in his bitterness of spirit.
”I am sorry for you,” said Melville, ”and still more for him.”
”Why should you be sorry for him?” demanded Ebenezer, sharply. ”He hasn't lost anything.”
”Is it nothing to lose his consciousness of integrity, to leave his home knowing that he is a thief?”
”Little he'll care for that!” said Mr. Graham, shrugging his shoulders.
”He's laughing in his sleeve, most likely, at the way he has duped and cheated me, his father.”
”How old is Eben, Mr. Graham?”
”He will be twenty in November,” answered Ebenezer, apparently puzzled by the question.
”Then, as he is so young, let us hope that he may see the error of his ways, and repent.”
”That won't bring me back my money,” objected Ebenezer, querulously.
It was clear that he thought more of the money he had lost than of his son's lack of principle.
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