Will Somers, the Boy Detective

The speaker was a boy of some sixteen years of age, a well-built, athletic lad, the sinewy development of his limbs showing through more than one rent in his well-worn clothes.

His claim to good looks was indisputable. A bright black eye gave character to a face of classical outline, straggling curls of dark hair hanging low over his olive-hued cheeks and brow, while his nose and mouth had all the fine curves of the Grecian type.

“What do you want?” asked the gentleman addressed, in a curt tone.

“Well, I ain’t partik’lar,” drawled the boy. “I want a job. Most anything will do. Say cashier, or head clerk.”

The merchant twisted himself around in his chair and looked at the speaker. The latter bore his sharp look unabashed, standing in an erect, easy attitude.

“Suppose I don’t want a cashier?”

“Maybe then you’d give me a job to make fires and run errands.”

“Who told you I wanted a boy?”

“A counter-jumper outside there. I axed him if there was room in this row for a smart young man, and he said he guessed you wanted a partner. So I jest stepped back to see if I wouldn’t suit.”

A frown came upon the merchant’s brow as he heard of this impudent action of one of his clerks.

“Who told you this?” he sharply asked.

“Now look ye here, mister,” said the boy, impressively; “that’s not my lay. I don’t tell tales out of school. I wouldn’t blow on a cat if I caught her stealing a mouse in another man’s kitchen.”

“Get out of here then. I am busy and don’t want to be bothered.”

“See here now,” said the boy, leisurely seating himself in a chair. “You’re not sayin’ nothing about that job. You’ve got a dozen men out there in the store, and I don’t see a boy in the shanty. Now you can’t run a place like this without a wide-awake boy, and I’m jest the feller you want.”

“You have impudence enough to run it yourself,” said the merchant, looking more closely at his importunate visitor.

“Wouldn’t be afeard to try,” said the boy, saucily, putting to his lips a half-smoked cigar which he had all this time held in his hand, and taking a long whiff. “I’ve a notion I could make dry-goods spin amazing. Jest hand me the reins and I bet I put her through at two-forty.”

The merchant laid aside the papers which he had been examining. He pushed back his chair from the table and faced his visitor.

He was a hale, handsome man of some fifty years of age, somewhat imperious in manner, but with a strong sense of humor in his face. He seemed to think that he had met an original character.

“What is your name?” asked the merchant.

“Will Somers.”

“Where do you live?”

“In this here big town of Philadelphia, but in a little street that I s’pose you never heered the name of. I make myself at home anywhere, though.”

“So it seems,” said the merchant, glancing at the handsome appointments of his private office, and then at the ragged dress of the boy.

“It’s only my coat and pants that’s torn,” said the latter, with an air of pride. “I’m all right inside, I bet there’s not a coon in these diggin’s can jump further, run faster, or lift more than me. And I never seen the day yet I was afeard of work! Now how about that job, mister?”

“Leonard,” said the merchant.

“Mr. Leonard, I mean. I’ve been a-waiting to get holt of the north end of your name.”

The merchant looked closely at his precocious visitor, who, to the age of a boy, added the self-assertion and experience of a grown man. The latter leaned back with easy assurance in his chair, and seemed indeed “at home.”

“What have you been used to doing?” asked Mr. Leonard.

“What ain’t I been used to would be a bit more like it,” said Will, resting his two elbows on the table. “Blackin’ boots, and sellin’ papers, and holdin’ hosses has been my big holts, but I’ve dipped into ’most everything else ’cept preaching.”

“You have been a little vagabond, I suppose, all your life, and know as much of the world as men ought to at twenty-five.”

“If there’s a feller inside of ten miles of here that says I ever done anything mean, I can lick that feller; that’s me!” cried Will, indignantly.

“Do you know Philadelphia well?”

“Does a cat know milk? Bet I do. Could navigate it with my eyes shet.”

“Are your parents living?”

“Dunno ’bout my dad,” said Will. “’Spect I’m an orphan. Me and sis was drapped in this here town when we was like young kittens. A big white house, t’other side the Schuylkill, was our head-quarters. Dad sloped. Never heered of him since.”

“The poor-house, eh?” said Mr. Leonard. “You have a sister?”

“Yes. She’s slipped, too. Was took out when I was a baby. Never see’d her since. Hope the girl’s sound. Know I’ve had mighty hard hoein’.”

There was a touch of feeling in Will’s voice which he sought to hide by greater recklessness of manner. Evidently he had a secret yearning for his lost sister.

Mr. Leonard was silent for several minutes before again speaking. He seemed to be debating something within himself.

“So you want to learn something of business?” he at length said.