TOM hardly knew what to do. As he finished his work that afternoon, and started toward home, he had half a mind to go and tell Dr. Spidderkins what he had heard. Then he reflected that he could say nothing definite, and that, after all, the mysterious message might be a perfectly proper one. It might refer to some other person than the eccentric doctor.
“But one thing I’m pretty certain of,” thought Tom, “and that is the voice I heard was that of Barton Sandow. Maybe I had better speak to Mr. Boise about it. No, if I do that I’ll have to say Sandow was talking to Mr. Cutler, and Mr. Boise will consult with him. Mr. Cutler will accuse me of listening, when I really couldn’t help it, and I’ll lose my place.
“No, I can’t do that. I wish I knew some one I might consult with. Perhaps Mr. Keen would be a good man. He seems kind, and I could ask him to say nothing about it to Mr. Cutler. I’ll think that over.”
Which Tom did, after he got to bed that night, but in the morning he was as unsettled as ever.
“I’ll not do anything until I’m more certain,” he decided. “But if Mr. Sandow calls up Mr. Cutler on the wire again, I’ll listen to all he says. I think I have a right to, for I believe he is up to something wrong.”
During the days that followed Tom became more and more expert at the switchboard, so that even Mr. Cutler, anxious as he was to do so, could find no fault with the lad.
“Tom, I have some good news for you,” Mr. Keen said to him one Saturday afternoon, when he was paying the telephone boy his weekly wages. “In the first place Mr. Boise wants me to tell you that he is very well satisfied with your work.”
“I am glad of that.”
“And, better than being merely glad about it, he has shown his appreciation in a substantial way. Hereafter your wages will be eleven dollars a week.”
“Thank you, very much,” replied Tom, “and tell Mr. Boise that I appreciate it.”
“I think he knows that. He is a man who likes to help boys get along in the world, and I am sure he will prove your friend.”
Tom was delighted at the additional money every week, and he knew his mother and aunt would share in his joy. He was now getting more than Charley Grove, who had been at the switchboard over a year, for Charley had not received the additional dollar he had “struck the boss for,” as he expressed it.
Tom thought this a good opportunity, when Mr. Keen was in such a particularly kindly mood, to broach the subject of Barton Sandow, and the mysterious message, but, just as he was about to mention it, a telephone call came in, and he had to adjust the switchboard. The call was for Mr. Keen, who had remained after the other members of the law firm had departed, and when he had finished talking he hurried away, before Tom had a chance to more than say “good-afternoon.”
“I’ll speak to him Monday,” thought Tom, but, when Monday came, Mr. Keen had to go out of town, and was away for several days.
There came several dull days in the law office, when, for hours at a time Tom would sit at the switchboard and not a call would come in. This was rather tiresome, but he had to remain on duty, as there was no telling when he would have to make the connections.
“I wish I could read,” he thought. “Guess I’ll ask one of the clerks if there’s any objection.”
Accordingly, he broached the matter to the young fellow who relieved him at the board during the noon hour.
“Sure you can read, if you want to,” said the youth. “Why don’t you start in to read law? This is a good chance. I used to have your job, and one day I was reading a book of adventures. Mr. Boise saw me, and wanted to know what it was. I told him, and I thought he’d object, but he suggested that I start to study law in my spare moments. I did, beginning on a simple book, and finally he made me a clerk. That gave me more time, and I’ll be ready for the bar examinations in another year.”
“I never thought of that,” said Tom. “I believe I would like to know something of law.”
“I’ll lend you a book to start on,” said the clerk kindly, and he handed Tom a volume that did not look very attractive. But Tom was not easily discouraged, and he began it. He found it simpler than he had expected, and he became quite interested in it.
“What have you there?” asked Mr. Boise of him, one afternoon, as the senior partner came in from a late lunch. “Is it the life of ‘Fearless Frank, the Boy Scout,’ or ‘Death-Dealing Dick’? Oh, there’s no objection to you reading,” he added hastily, as Tom started up in some confusion.
As he did so the book fell down, open, so that the title could be read.
“Ah, the law primer,” remarked Mr. Boise. “I am glad to see this, Tom. Not that there is anything wrong in reading a good book of adventure, for I like that sort of a story myself, once in a while, but they are not good as a steady diet. When you finish that book I will loan you another.”
He passed on, nodding his head in approval.
Meanwhile, as the days passed, Tom was wondering why Barton Sandow did not call up again.
“Maybe I frightened him,” thought the telephone boy.
That afternoon Mr. Keen called Tom into his office.
“I want you to leave a little earlier to-day,” he said. “A client of ours is coming to the Parker House. Do you know where that hotel is?”
Tom well knew the location of the famous hotel, the rolls of which have become a byword in many parts of the country.
“I want you to take these papers to Mr. Jonathan Norris, who is stopping there,” went on Mr. Keen. “Ask the clerk to show you to his room, deliver the documents, and have him give you a receipt. He is expecting them.”
“What about the telephone?” asked Tom.
“I will have one of the clerks look after it for you, while you are gone. You need not come back, here to-night.”
Tom liked that, as it would give him about an hour off.
He found Mr. Norris without trouble, delivered the papers, and was walking briskly toward the door of the main entrance, when he nearly collided with Barton Sandow, who was hurriedly entering the hotel.
“Excuse me,” said Tom.
“What! You here!” exclaimed Sandow. “I thought—I——”
He seemed quite startled, and Tom wondered what the matter could be.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked.
“Hurt me? No—but you——”
Again Sandow seemed confused.
“Was it you at the telephone switchboard the other day?” he asked, and Tom wondered at the friendly tone he used. It was quite different from the voice in which Mr. Barton Sandow had called our hero a “gutter-pup.”
“Yes,” replied the boy. “You mean the day you called up Mr. Cutler?”
“That’s the day. Did you hear what I said?”
“Part of it,” answered Tom.
“You did?” and Sandow seemed quite excited.
“I could not help it. I had to come in on the wire to see if Mr. Cutler was through, as a lady was anxious to talk to him.”
“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter,” spoke Sandow, with an air of studied indifference. “The message was of no importance. It was about some property I own, and which is in litigation. Mr. Cutler is my lawyer. It’s only a small matter.”
Tom wondered if it was, why Mr. Sandow should seem so frightened over something, for frightened the man certainly was.
“I don’t suppose you reported what you heard to any one; did you?” asked Sandow eagerly.
“No, sir,” replied Tom quickly. “It is against orders to speak of the firm’s business outside.”
“That’s right, though in this case it doesn’t make any difference. It was of small importance. The affair is closed up now. It was of no importance whatever.” And Sandow passed on.
“Well, if it wasn’t,” thought Tom, who had his own ideas on the subject, “you’re taking a great deal of trouble to impress that fact on me.”
Wondering more than ever what sort of a game Sandow was playing, Tom left the lobby of the hotel, and started toward home.