y presence. He said
there was enough dynamite to blow up the biggest building in the city."

"What is going to be done with it?" asked the banker anxiously.

"The policemen were starting with it for the North River."

"That's the only safe place for it."

"If you have no further use for this man we'll carry him to the
station-house," said one of the officers.

"Yes, yes, take him away!" ejaculated the banker with a shudder.

Struggling fiercely, the crank was hurried down the stairs by the two
official guardians, and then Mr. Rockwell who was an old man, quietly
fainted away.

When he came to, he said feebly, "I am very much upset. I think I will
go home. Call a cab, my boy."

Mark soon had one at the door.

"Now, I want you to go with me and see me home. I don't dare to go by
myself."

Mark helped the old gentleman into his cab, and up the stairs of his
dwelling. Mr. Rockwell paid the cab driver adding. "Take this boy back
to my office. What is your name, my boy?"

"Mark Mason, No. 79."

Luther Rockwell scribbled a few lines on a leaf torn from his memorandum
book, and gave it to Mark.

"Present that at the office," he said. "Come round next week and see
me."

"Yes, sir," answered Mark respectfully, and sprang into the cab.

As he was riding through Madison Avenue he noticed from the window his
uncle Solon and Edgar walking slowly along on the left hand side. At the
same moment they espied him.

"Look, father!" cried Edgar in excitement "Mark Mason is riding in that
cab."

"So he is!" echoed Mr. Talbot in surprise.

Catching their glance, Mark smiled and bowed. He could understand their
amazement, and he enjoyed it.

Mechanically Mr. Talbot returned the salutation, but Edgar closed his
lips very firmly and refused to take any notice of his cousin.

"I don't understand it," he said to his father, when the cab had passed.
"Doesn't it cost a good deal to ride in a cab in New York?"

"Yes. I never rode in one but once, and then I had to pay two dollars."

"And yet Mark Mason, who is little more than a beggar, can afford to
ride! And last evening he was at the theater in company with a
fashionable young lady. Telegraph boys must get higher pay than he
said."

"Perhaps, Edgar," suggested his father with an attempt at humor, "you
would like to become a telegraph boy yourself."

"I'd scorn to go into such a low business."

"Well, I won't urge you to do so."

Meanwhile Mark continued on his wa