later. His wife, a crabbed woman, who detested Matt, and was glad when
he was out of the house, at once sold out the chandlery, and went to
live with her folks in a small village in Vermont. Thus Matt was
thrown out upon his own resources with no capital but a ten dollar
bill, which his Uncle Dan had quietly slipped into his hand only a few
days before the end.

Matt remained around Bridgeport but two days after his uncle's
funeral. Then he struck up a bargain with the captain of a schooner
which was loaded with freight for Philadelphia, and sailed for that
city.

When no trace of Matt's father could be found the detectives who had
been put on the case declared their belief that the poor man had
drowned himself in the Delaware River. This belief was strengthened
when some clothing that looked like that which the demented man had
worn was found in a secluded spot not far from the river bank.

But Matt could not bring himself to believe that his father was dead.
There was a hope in his breast which amounted almost to a conviction
that some day he would again find his parent, alive and well.

Yet Matt's search in and around Philadelphia, lasting several months,
was unsuccessful. His money was soon spent, and then he started to
tramp from Philadelphia to his former home, New York.

This tramp, of about one hundred miles by the various turnpikes
through New Jersey, took the boy just one week, and when he arrived in
the metropolis, both his clothing and his shoes were considerably
worn. But he brushed up, and lost no time in hunting up work, knowing
that it would never do to remain idle.

For two days Matt was without employment. Then he thought of the man
who had sold his father the mining shares, Mr. Randolph Fenton, and he
paid the stock-broker a visit at his offices, on Broad street, just
off of Wall street.

As it happened, Randolph Fenton was just then in need of a boy to run
errands and do copying, and after a talk with Matt, he hired him at a
salary of four dollars a week.

"I'll take you in because I thought so much of your dear father,"
explained Randolph Fenton. "We were great friends, you must know, and
I feel it my duty to do something for his son."

Randolph Fenton spoke very nicely, but Matt soon found that he was by
no means the kind-hearted gentleman he wished to appear. In reality,
he was very mean and close. He worked his clerks almost to death, and
such a thing as a raise in salary was unknown