Chapter 3 –The Thief in the Stock Exchange.

When the two boys arrived at the Astor House corner, they failed to find the man there. While looking around for him he came up to Fred, laid a hand on his shoulder and said:

"It was a neat little game you played on me. Where does the laugh come in?"

Fred laughed and asked:

"Where were you born?"

"Right here in New York."

"Must have got lost then. What do you want of me?"

"I am a detective and have been on the tracks of a band of forgers for months. I see in the papers that you helped bag one of them to-day. You gave warning to the bank. That's what I want to see you about. There is a big reward up for the arrest of the gang. If you can give me any information that may lead to the arrest of any of them you can have one half the reward."

"Not much I won't," Fred replied, shaking his head. "I can arrest the whole gang myself and get all the reward."

"That's all nonsense. You can't arrest any man. You're but a boy yet."

"Yes, that's so. But I got one of 'em to-day. I could call that cop over here now and get another but I am not ready for you yet."

"What do you mean?' the man asked, turning pale with a frightened look in his eyes.

"I mean I am on to you."

"How on to me?"

"Oh, you make me tired. I got your pal to-day. Look out I don't get you to-morrow."

The look of amazement on the man's face was a picture. Fred looked up at him and laughed. Then he turned away and went over across the street, as if to speak to the policeman there. The man hurried across Broadway, and was lost in the crowd surging along Park Row.

"That was a good scare you gave him, Fred," Bob said, as they walked on up the street.

"Yes. I knew it would be. I wouldn't tell him how I got onto his game. That's what he wanted to find out."

"You have got to look out for him after this."

"I am going to do that."

They went up Broadway to Grand street, and then turned toward the Bowery. Both lived on the east side, above Grand street, in the densely populated districts where rents were cheap and everybody poor. Adah had not come in from the store. His aunt was very tired from the labor of a hard day's wash, and therefore not in the best of humor.

"What brought you home so soon?" she asked, looking at him.

"Just to make you stop work. You are killing yourself, aunt."

"Would you tell me which is the best way to die–of hard work or starvation?" she asked.

"Oh, we are not going to die for a long time yet. You'll marry again, and we'll all be rich."

She straightened herself up by the side of the tub and glared at him.

"What's the matter with you, Freddie?" she asked. "Are you sick, child?"

Fred laughed and said:

"Not sick, but tired."

"Well, so am I, and all poor people, as for that matter. Did you give up selling papers and come home to rest?"

"No, aunt. I came home to give you a rest. Just look at the color of that, and tell me what you think of it," and as he spoke he laid a ten-dollar bill on the corner of a little table near where she stood.

She glanced at the bill and almost gasped out:

"Ten dollars! Fred Halsey, where did you get that money?"

"Downtown, aunt. Does it relieve that tired feeling to look at it?"

"Whose is it? Why don't you tell me about it?"

"It's yours, every cent of it, and I've got fifteen more bills of that size in the bank."

The good woman dropped down into a chair and glared at her nephew. Fred went to her, put his arms about her neck, kissed her and said:

"I've had good luck to-day, aunt. Just read that and you will understand it all," and he gave her a copy of an afternoon paper in which was the story of the capture of the forger in Barron's bank.

"And they gave you this money for what you did?" she exclaimed, when she had finished reading it.

"Yes. They just chipped in and gave me a pile of money. I left all in the bank but this, which I wanted to give to you. And you can have every cent of the rest whenever you want it–you and sister."

"Oh, you dear, good boy!" she exclaimed, her eyes filling with tears as she caught him in her arms. "I knew you would always be good to me."

"You've been a mother to us, aunt, and I'll never go back on my mother!"

Adah came home from the store tired and hungry. At supper her aunt told her of Fred's adventure and good fortune. She sprang up and danced around the room in her joy and then kissed him a half dozen times.

It did seem like an enormous sum to her a girl of but fourteen summers.

"What are you going to do with it, Fred?" she finally asked.

"Give it to aunt and to use for you and herself."

They all had pleasant dreams that night. Fred dreamed of the big fortune made in Wall Street; and Adah dreamed that she was no longer a cash girl in a big store, but wore fine dresses and rode in a carriage. The next morning, however, Fred ate early and hurried off downtown to sell papers, and Adah was at the store at her usual hour. Fred delivered to all his Wall Street patrons and then sold on the street to passersby all the morning. He was all around the Stock Exchange, for there he found the most customers. Inside the Stock Exchange he heard the brokers yelling like so many lunatics. That was so often the case, however, that he gave it little thought. But soon he saw Bob Newcombe, Manson's messenger, come out in a great hurry and dart off down the street.

"Guess Manson is busy inside," he said to himself as he kept his eyes open for customers.

In a few moments Bob came running back. He ran up against Fred.

"Just go up in the gallery and see how B. & H. is climbing up, Fred," he said to him.

"How much has it gone up, Bob?" Fred asked him.

"Five points, and that means $100 for us," Bob replied.

"Whew!" and Fred whistled.

Bob dashed into the Exchange by way of the side entrance on New street and disappeared from view.

"Guess I'll go up in the gallery and look on a while," Fred said to himself. "Here, Mugsey, you can have my papers," and he turned over about one dozen papers to an ugly little newsboy whom the others called Mugsey.

The little fellow was astonished.

"Do yer give 'em ter me, Fred?" he asked before taking them.

"Yes. I'm done for the day."

Fred found quite a crowd of people up in the gallery, and among them a party of ladies from out of town. They were sightseeing. But there was nothing new to him up there. He wanted to see Broker Manson and watch the rise of B. & H. stock. It took him some time to find Manson in the moving mass of yelling brokers on the floor below. But he finally found him, and for half an hour never took his eyes off of him. He heard him offering fifty-three and finally fifty-four for B. & H. It has thus gone up seven points since the day before.

"Bob was right," he said. "He knew what he was about. B. & H. is climbing right up to the top. Hanged if I don't put in another hundred!" and he ran down and out into the street like a young lunatic. In five minutes he had put up another hundred dollars with Broker Tabor for Halsey & Company to buy more B. & H. stock on margin. The stock was bought immediately at 54 1/2-eighteen shares.

That done, Fred returned to the Exchange and watched proceedings from the gallery. He kept his eyes on Broker Manson. The big broker was buying the stock at a tremendous rate, all that was offered him. People were coming and going all the time. Fred finally turned to look at a young girl whose voice sounded like music in his ears. She was close by his side. She was accompanied by an elderly couple, evidently her parents. He thought her very beautiful and that she had the most musical voice he had ever heard.

She changed positions several times as though looking for somebody on the floor below. He noticed a tall, well-dressed man keeping close behind her, peering over her shoulder at the crowd below. Something in his movements caused Fred to look at him the second time, and to his amazement he saw him pick the pockets of both the ladies. The thief then started to leave, but Fred grabbed his coat-tail, saying:

"Here, I saw that little game. It won't go. Ladies, this man has got your pocketbooks."

Quick as a flash the thief grabbed him and lifted him above his head. Fred saw he was going to be hurled headlong among the brokers below, and to save himself seized his assailant's coat collar. The two ladies screamed, and the next moment Fred and the pickpocket fell over the gallery and went down in a heap on the yelling brokers below.

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