The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Errand Boy, by Horatio Alger

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Title: The Errand Boy

Author: Horatio Alger

Release Date: March 14, 2006 [EBook #462]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ERRAND BOY ***

Produced by Mike Lough and David Widger

THE ERRAND BOY;

OR, HOW PHIL BRENT WON SUCCESS.

By Horatio Alger, Jr.,

Author of:

"Joe's Luck," "Frank Fowler, the Cash Boy," "Tom Temple's Career," "Tom
Thatcher's Fortune," "Ragged Dick," "Tattered Tom," "Luck and Pluck,"
etc., etc.

Contents:

The Errand Boy.

Fred Sargent's Revenge.

The Smuggler's Trap.

THE ERRAND BOY.

CHAPTER I.

PHIL HAS A LITTLE DIFFICULTY.

Phil Brent was plodding through the snow in the direction of the house
where he lived with his step-mother and her son, when a snow-ball, moist
and hard, struck him just below his ear with stinging emphasis. The pain
was considerable, and Phil's anger rose.

He turned suddenly, his eyes flashing fiercely, intent upon discovering
who had committed this outrage, for he had no doubt that it was
intentional.

He looked in all directions, but saw no one except a mild old gentleman
in spectacles, who appeared to have some difficulty in making his way
through the obstructed street.

Phil did not need to be told that it was not the old gentleman who had
taken such an unwarrantable liberty with him. So he looked farther, but
his ears gave him the first clew.

He heard a chuckling laugh, which seemed to proceed from behind the
stone wall that ran along the roadside.

"I will see who it is," he decided, and plunging through the snow he
surmounted the wall, in time to see a boy of about his own age running
away across the fields as fast as the deep snow would allow.

"So it's you, Jonas!" he shouted wrathfully. "I thought it was some
sneaking fellow like you."

Jonas Webb, his step-brother, his freckled face showing a degree of
dismay, for he had not calculated on discovery, ran the faster, but
while fear winged his steps, anger proved the more effectual spur, and
Phil overtook him after a brief run, from the effects of wh