In a few minutes he returned with a roll of bills.
"Count them over and see if they are right, Mark."
"Yes, sir; they are correct."
"Very good! Remember that they are for your mother. Tell her also that if you remain longer than I antic.i.p.ate, and she gets short of money, she can call at my office and I will supply her with more."
Mark left the office in a state of joyful excitement.
He was to make a long journey across the continent. He would see many states and cities, and become acquainted with places which he now knew only by hearsay. And after he returned his prospects would be brighter, for Mr. Gilbert had promised to find him a position at least equal to the one he resigned.
In the afternoon as Mark was returning from an errand in West Fiftieth Street, he saw Edgar Talbot in the neighborhood of Bryant Park.
"Hallo!" said Edgar condescendingly. "Are you on an errand?"
"Yes."
"Ho, ho! how you will look in a telegraph boy"s uniform when you are a young man of twenty-five."
"What makes you think I am going to be a telegraph boy so long?"
"Because you are not fit for any other business."
Mark smiled.
"I am sorry for that," he said, "for as it happens I have tendered my resignation."
"You don"t mean that you are going to leave the messenger service?"
"Yes."
"But how are you going to live? It won"t be any use to ask father for money."
"I presume not."
"Perhaps," suggested Edgar hopefully, "you have been discharged."
"I discharged myself."
"Have you got another position?"
"I am going to travel for a while."
Edgar Talbot was more and more perplexed. In fact he had always found Mark a perplexing problem.
"How can you travel without money?"
"Give it up. I don"t propose to."
"Have you got any money?"
Mark happened to have with him the roll of bills given him for his mother. He drew it out.
"Do you mean to say that is yours? How much is there?"
"A hundred dollars."
"I don"t believe it is yours."
"It isn"t. It belongs to my mother."
"But father said she was very poor."
"At any rate this money belongs to her."
"Where are you going to travel?"
"Out West."
This was all the information Mark would give. Edgar reported the conversation to his father, who was also perplexed.
"Mark Mason is a strange boy," he said. "I don"t understand him."
CHAPTER XXVII.
LAST INSTRUCTIONS.
MARK had intended to find a new and more comfortable place for his mother, being dissatisfied with their humble rooms in St. Mark"s Place, but the journey he was called upon so unexpectedly to make, led to a postponement of this plan.
"You can move, mother, if you like," said Mark, after placing the hundred dollars in her hands. "You"ll have money enough."
"That"s true, Mark, but you wouldn"t know how to address me, and I might lose some of your letters. I shall be satisfied to stay here till you return. But do you think you had better go? You are very young to cross the continent alone."
"I am nearly sixteen, mother, and I have been in the habit of looking out for myself. Besides Mr. Gilbert thinks I am old enough, and if he has confidence in me I ought to have confidence in myself."
"I suppose it is all right, but I shall miss you terribly."
"It is for my good, and will be for yours, mother. I have long wanted to leave the messenger service and get into some steady position where I can push myself ahead, and this seems to me my chance."
"You will write often, Mark?"
"I will be sure to do that. You don"t think I will forget my mother?"
On Sat.u.r.day evening Mark went to Mr. Gilbert"s to receive instructions.