Chapter I.
“Life's but a walking shadow—a poor player.”
—Shakespeare.
“Let me die to sweet music.”
—F. W. Shuckers.
“Go forth, Clarence Stanley! Hence to
the bleak world, dog! You have repaid
my generosity with the blackest ingratitude.
You have forged my name on a five thousand
dollar check—have repeatedly robbed
my money-drawer—have perpetrated a long
series of high-handed villainies, and now
to-night, because, forsooth, I'll not give you
more money to spend on your dissolute
companions you break a chair over my
aged head. Away! You are a young
man of small moral principle. Don't ever
speak to me again!”
These harsh words fell from the lips of
Horace Blinker, one of the merchant princes
of New York city. He spoke to Clarence
Stanley, his adopted son and a beautiful
youth of nineteen summers. In vain did
Clarence plead his poverty, his tender age
and inexperience; in vain did he fasten
those lustrous blue eyes of his appealingly
and tearfully upon Mr. Blinker, and tell
him he would make the pecuniary matter
all right in the fall, and that he merely shattered
a chair over his head by way of a
joke. The stony-hearted man was remorseless,
and that night Clarence Stanley became
a wanderer in the wide, wide world!
As he went forth he uttered these words:
“H. Blinker, beware!
A Red Hand is
around, my fine feller!”
