Young Wallingford

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YOUNG WALLINGFORD

by

GEORGE RANDOLPH CHESTER

Author of The Early Bird The Making of Bobby Burnit

With Illustrations by F. R. Gruger & Henry Raleigh

Indianapolis The Bobbs-Merrill Company Publishers

Copyright 1910 The Bobbs-Merrill Company

Press of Braunworth & Co. Bookbinders and Printers Brooklyn, N. Y.

[Illustration: Fannie]

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I WIX BEGINS TO THINK 1

II EASY MONEY 12

III YOUNG WIX TAKES A HAND 25

IV THE EASIEST WAY 38

V WIX DISAPPEARS FOREVER 52

VI A SAD DISAPPOINTMENT 61

VII A GREEN-GOODS PLAYLET 72

VIII THE DOUBLE CROSS 86

IX SPOILING THE EGYPTIANS 101

X EATING CAKE AND HAVING IT 111

XI A BRIEF CHARACTER BIT 126

XII WALLINGFORD IS FROZEN OUT 144

XIII BEAUTY IN THE SPOT-LIGHT 158

XIV AN OLD SCORE EVENED UP 172

XV TAKING HIS MONEY 183

XVI ENJOYING THEMSELVES 201

XVII J. RUFUS SEEKS INVESTMENT 219

XVIII SPECULATION IN REAL ESTATE 231

XIX A GREAT ART CENTER 251

XX ETRUSCAN BLACK MUD 264

XXI THE GREAT VITTOREO MATTEO 279

XXII THE SURPRISE OF HIS LIFE 288

XXIII STILL ANOTHER SURPRISE 298

XXIV A STRAIGHT BUSINESS 306

XXV THE SCIATACATA COMPANY 318

XXVI A DELUSION AND A SNARE 331

XXVII LAUGH AT THAT WOOZY FEELING 341

YOUNG WALLINGFORD

CHAPTER I

WHEREIN JONATHAN REUBEN WIX BEGINS TO THINK

"A natural again!" exulted Jonathan Reuben Wix, as the dice bounded from his plump hand and came to rest upon the billiard-table in Leiniger's Select Café, with a five and a deuce showing. "Somebody ring the bell for me, because I'm a-going to get off."

He was a large young man in every dimension, broad of chest and big and pink of face and jovial of eye, and he chuckled as he passed the dice to his left-hand neighbor. There was a hundred dollars on the table and he gathered it up in a wad.

"Good-by, boys, and many merry thanks for these kind contributions," he bantered as he stuffed the money into his pocket. "It's me for Bunkville-amidst-the-ferry-boats, on the next Limited."

He was back in less than three days, having spent just twenty-four hours in New York. The impulsively decided journey was nothing unusual for him, but it had an intimate bearing upon his future in that it forced upon him the confidence of secretive Clifford Gilman, who lived next door.

"Home so soon?" inquired Gilman in surprise. "They must have robbed you!"

"Robbed!" laughed Wix. "I should say not. I didn't waste a cent. Railroad ticket, sleepers, meals and extra fare on the Limited cost twenty-five each way. That left fifty. My room at the hotel cost five dollars. Breakfast was two dollars; morning drive through Central Park, four; lunch, three-fifty; matinée ticket, with cab each way, five; dinner, eight, with the ordinary champagne of commerce; theater and cab hire, five-fifty; supper, twelve, including a bottle of real champagne at eight dollars, and the balance in tips."

Clifford gasped as he hungrily reviewed these luscious items.

Young Gilman was not one of those who had been in the game by which Wix had won a hundred. He never played dice, did young Gilman, nor poker, nor bet on a horse race, nor drank, nor even smoked; but wore curly, silken sideburns, and walked up the same side of Main Street every morning to the bank, with his lunch in a little imitation-leather box. He walked back down the same side of Main Street every evening. If he had happened to take the other side on any morning, before noon there would have been half a dozen conservative depositors to ask old Smalley, who owned the bank, why Clifford had crossed over.