



Produced by David Edwards, Carol David, Richard Hulse and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive)









[Illustration: Oliver Resents his Step-brother's Interference.]


  ADRIFT IN THE CITY

  OR

  _OLIVER CONRAD'S PLUCKY FIGHT_


  BY

  HORATIO ALGER, JR.

  AUTHOR OF "RAGGED DICK" SERIES, "TATTERED TOM" SERIES, "LUCK AND PLUCK"
  SERIES

  THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO.
  PHILADELPHIA
  CHICAGO TORONTO




  COPYRIGHT, 1895,

  BY

  PORTER & COATES.




CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER                                                       PAGE

       I. TWO YOUNG ENEMIES,                                       1

      II. OPEN REVOLT,                                            10

     III. THE YOUNG RIVALS,                                       18

      IV. MR. KENYON'S SECRET,                                    28

       V. MR. KENYON'S RESOLVE,                                   37

      VI. MR. KENYON'S CHANGE OF BASE,                            46

     VII. ROLAND'S DISCOMFITURE,                                  55

    VIII. A DANGEROUS LETTER,                                     64

      IX. OLIVER'S MOTHER,                                        73

       X. THE ROYAL LUNATIC,                                      82

      XI. HOW THE LETTER WAS MAILED,                              92

     XII. OLIVER'S JOURNEY,                                       97

    XIII. MR. KENYON'S PLANS FOR OLIVER,                         102

     XIV. A STORE IN THE BOWERY,                                 111

      XV. JOHN'S COURTSHIP,                                      120

     XVI. THE CONSPIRACY,                                        129

    XVII. OLIVER LOSES HIS PLACE,                                135

   XVIII. OLIVER, THE OUTCAST,                                   143

     XIX. A STRANGE ACQUAINTANCE,                                147

      XX. A TERRIBLE SITUATION,                                  156

     XXI. ROLAND IS SURPRISED,                                   165

    XXII. OLIVER ADOPTS A NEW GUARDIAN,                          175

   XXIII. MR. BUNDY IS DISAPPOINTED, AND OLIVER
            MEETS SOME FRIENDS,                                  184

    XXIV. ANOTHER CLUE,                                          193

     XXV. MAKING ARRANGEMENTS,                                   199

    XXVI. WHO RUPERT JONES WAS,                                  203

   XXVII. A STARTLING TELEGRAM,                                  208

  XXVIII. OLD NANCY'S HUT,                                       213

    XXIX. DR. FOX IN PURSUIT,                                    222

     XXX. HOW DR. FOX WAS FOOLED,                                231

    XXXI. MRS. KENYON FINDS FRIENDS,                             240

   XXXII. MR. DENTON OF CHICAGO,                                 249

  XXXIII. A MIDNIGHT ATTACK,                                     258

   XXXIV. DENTON SEES HIS VICTIMS ESCAPE,                        267

    XXXV. ON THE TRACK,                                          274

   XXXVI. DENTON IS CHECKMATED,                                  280

  XXXVII. DENTON'S LITTLE ADVENTURE IN THE CARS,                 286

 XXXVIII. THE MEETING AT LINCOLN PARK,                           296

   XXXIX. THE COMMON ENEMY,                                      305

      XL. THE THUNDERBOLT FALLS,                                 314




    ADRIFT IN THE CITY;
    OR,
    OLIVER CONRAD'S PLUCKY FIGHT.




CHAPTER I.

TWO YOUNG ENEMIES.


"Oliver, bring me that ball!" said Roland Kenyon, in a tone of command.

The speaker, a boy of sixteen, stood on the lawn before a handsome
country mansion. He had a bat in his hand, and had sent the ball far
down the street. He was fashionably dressed, and evidently felt himself
a personage of no small consequence.

The boy he addressed, Oliver Conrad, was his junior by a year--not so
tall, but broader and more thick-set, with a frank, manly face, and an
air of independence and self-reliance.

He was returning home from school, and carried two books in his hand.

Oliver was naturally obliging, but there was something he did not like
in the other's imperious tone, and his pride was touched.

"Are you speaking to me?" he demanded quietly.

"Of course I am. Is there any other Oliver about?"

"When you ask a favor, you had better be polite about it."

"Bother politeness! Go after that ball! Do you hear?" exclaimed Roland
angrily.

Oliver eyed him calmly.

"Go for it yourself," he retorted. "I don't intend to run on your
errands."

"You don't?" exclaimed Roland furiously.

"Didn't I speak plainly enough? I meant what I said."

"Go after that ball this instant!" shrieked Roland, stamping his foot;
"or I'll make you!"

"Suppose you make me do it," said Oliver contemptuously, opening the
gate, and entering the yard.

Roland had worked himself into a passion, and this made him reckless of
consequences. He threw the bat in his hand at Oliver, and if the latter
had not dodged quickly it would have seriously injured him. At the same
time Roland rushed impetuously upon the boy who had offended him by his
independence.

To say that Oliver kept calm under this aggravated attack would be
incorrect. His eyes flashed with anger. He threw his books upon the
lawn, and put himself in an instant on guard. A moment, and the two
boys were engaged in a close struggle.

Roland was taller, and this gave him an advantage; but Oliver was the
more sturdy and agile. He clasped Roland around the waist, lifted him
off his feet, and laid him, after a brief resistance, on the lawn.

"You'd better not attack me again!" he said, looking with flushed face
at his fallen foe.

Roland was furious. He sprang to his feet and flung himself upon
Oliver, but with so little discretion that the latter, by a
well-planted blow, immediately felled him to the ground, and, warned
by the second attack, planted his knee on Roland's breast, thus
preventing him from rising.

"Let me up!" shrieked Roland furiously, struggling desperately but
ineffectually.

"Will you let me alone, then?"

"No, I won't!" returned Roland, who in his anger lost sight of prudence.

"Then you may lie there till you promise," said Oliver composedly.

"Get up, you bully!" screamed Roland.

"You are the bully. You attacked me, or I should never have touched
you," said Oliver.

"I'll tell my father," said Roland.

"Tell, if you want to," said Oliver, his lip curling.

"He'll have you well beaten."

"I don't think he will."

"So you defy him, then?"

"No; I defy nobody. But I mean to defend myself from violence."

"What's the matter with you two boys? Oliver, what are you doing?"

The speaker was Mr. Kenyon's gardener, John Bradford, a sensible man
and usually intelligent. Oliver often talked with him, and treated him
respectfully, as he deserved. Roland was foolish enough to look down
upon him because he was a poor man and occupied a subordinate position.

Oliver rose from the ground and let up his adversary.

"We have had a little difficulty, Mr. Bradford," he said. "Roland may
tell you if he likes."

"What is the trouble, Roland?" enquired the gardener.

"None of your business!" answered Roland insolently.

"You are very polite," said the gardener.

"I don't feel called upon to be polite to my father's hired man,"
remarked Roland unpleasantly.

"If he won't answer your question, I will," said Oliver. "Roland
commanded me to run and get his ball, and I didn't choose to do it. He
attacked me, and I defended myself. That is all there is about it."

"No, it isn't all there is about it," said Roland passionately. "You
have insulted me, and you are going to be flogged. You may just make
up your mind to that."

"How have I insulted you?"

"You threw me down."

"Suppose I hadn't. What would have happened to me?"

"I would have whipped you if you hadn't taken me by surprise."

Oliver shrugged his shoulders.

Apparently Roland didn't propose to renew the fight. Oliver watched him
warily, suspecting a sudden attack, but it was not made. Roland turned
toward the house, merely discharging this last shaft at his young
conqueror:

"You'll get it when my father gets home."

"Your ball is in the road," said the gardener. "It will be lost."

"No, it won't. Oliver will have to bring it in yet."

"I am afraid he means mischief, Oliver," said the gardener, turning to
our hero as Roland slammed the front door upon entering.

"I suppose he does," said Oliver quietly. "It isn't the first attempt
he has made to order me around."

"He is a very disagreeable boy," said Bradford.

"He is the most disagreeable boy I know," said Oliver. "I can get along
with any of the other boys, except Jim Cameron, his chosen friend. He's
pretty much the same sort of fellow as Roland--only, not being rich, he
can't put on so many airs."

"You talk of Roland being rich," said the gardener. "He has no right to
be called so."

"His father has property, I suppose?"

"Mr. Kenyon was poor enough when he married your mother. All the
property he owns came from her."

"Is that true, Mr. Bradford?" asked Oliver thoughtfully.

"Yes; didn't you know it?"

"I have sometimes thought so."

"There is no doubt about it. It excited a good deal of talk--your
mother's will."

"Did she leave all her property to Mr. Kenyon, John?"

"So he says, and he shows a will that has been admitted to probate."

Oliver was silent for a moment. Then he spoke:

"If my mother chose to leave all to him, I have not a word to say. She
had a right to do as she pleased."

"But it seems singular. She loved you as much as any mother loves her
son; yet she disinherited you."

"I will not complain of anything she did, Mr. Bradford," said Oliver
soberly.

"Suppose she didn't do it, Master Oliver?"

"What do you mean, Mr. Bradford?" asked the boy, fixing his eyes upon
the gardener's face.

"I mean that there are some in the village who think there has been
foul play--that the will is not genuine."

"Do you think so, Mr. Bradford?"

"Knowing your mother, and her love for you, I believe there's been some
fraud practised, and that Mr. Kenyon is at the bottom of it."

"I wish I knew," said Oliver. "It isn't the money I care about so
much, but I don't like to think that my mother preferred Mr. Kenyon to
me."

"Wait patiently, Oliver; it'll all come out some day."

Just then Roland appeared at the front door and called out, in a tone
of triumphant malice:

"Come right in, Oliver; my father wants to see you."

Oliver and the gardener exchanged glances. Then the boy answered:

"You may tell your father I am coming," and walked quietly toward the
front door.

"I've told him all about it," said Roland.

"Are you sure you have told your father all?"

"Yes, I have."

"That's all I want. If you have told him all, he must see that I am not
to blame."

"You'll find out. He's mad enough."

Oliver knew enough of his step-father to accept this as probable.

"Now, for it," he thought, and followed Roland into his father's
presence.




CHAPTER II.

OPEN REVOLT.


Benjamin Kenyon, the father of Roland and Oliver's step-father, was a
man of fifty or more. He had a high narrow forehead, small eyes, and a
scanty supply of coarse black hair rimming a bald crown with a fringe
in the shape of a horse-shoe. His expression was crafty and insincere.
A tolerable judge of physiognomy would at once pronounce him as a man
not to be trusted.

He turned upon Oliver with a frown, and said harshly:

"How dared you assault my son Roland!"

"It was he who assaulted me, Mr. Kenyon," answered Oliver quietly.

"Do you deny that you felled him to the earth twice?"

"I threw him over twice, if that is what you mean, sir."

"If that is what I mean! Don't be impertinent, sir."

"I have not been--thus far."

"Do you think I shall allow you to make a brutal assault upon my son,
you young reprobate?"

"If you call me by that name again I shall refuse to answer you," said
Oliver with spirit.

"Do you hear that, father?" interrupted Roland, anxious to prejudice
his father against his young enemy.

"I hear it," said Mr. Kenyon; "and you may rely upon it that I shall
take notice of it, too. So you have no defence to make, then?"

This last question was, of course, addressed to Oliver.

"I will merely state what happened, Mr. Kenyon. Roland had batted his
ball far out on the road. He ordered me to go for it, and I refused."

"You refused?"

"Yes, sir."

"And why?"

"Because I am not subject to your son's orders."

"It is because you are selfish and disobliging."

"No, sir. If Roland had asked me, as a favor, to get the ball, I would
have done it, being nearer to it than he, but I did not choose to obey
his orders."

"He has a right to order you about," said Mr. Kenyon, frowning.

"I don't admit it," said Oliver.

"Is he not older than you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then you must obey him?"

"I am sorry to differ with you, Mr. Kenyon, but I cannot see it in that
light."

"It makes very little difference in what light you see it," sneered Mr.
Kenyon. "I command you to obey him!"

Roland listened with triumphant malice, and nodded his head with
satisfaction.

"Do you hear that?" he said insolently.

Oliver eyed him calmly.

"Yes, I hear it," he said.

"Then you'd better remember it next time."

"Where is the ball now?" asked Mr. Kenyon.

"In the street."

"Oliver, you may go and get it, and bring it to Roland."

Roland laughed--a little low, chuckling laugh that was very
exasperating to Oliver. Our hero's naturally pleasant face assumed a
firm and determined expression. He was about to make a declaration of
independence.

"Do you ask me to go for this ball as a favor?" he asked, turning to
his step-father.

"No," returned the latter harshly. "I command you to do it without
question, and at once."

"Then, sir, much as I regret it, I must refuse to obey you."

Oliver was pale but firm.

Mr. Kenyon's face, on the contrary, was flushed and angry.

"Do you defy me?" he roared furiously.

"I defy no one, sir, but you require me to do what would put me in
the power of your son. If I consented, there would be no end to his
attempts to tyrannize over me."

"Are you aware that I am your natural guardian, sir--that the law
delegates to me supreme authority over you, you young reprobate?"
demanded Mr. Kenyon, working himself into an ungovernable passion.

Oliver did not reply.

"Speak, I order you!" exclaimed his step-father, stamping his foot.

"I did not speak sooner because you called me a young reprobate, sir.
I answer now that I will sooner leave your house and go out into the
world to shift for myself than allow Roland to trample upon me and
order me about like a dog."

"Enough of this! Roland, go downstairs and get my cane."

"I'll go," said Roland, with alacrity.

It was a welcome commission. Smarting with a sense of his own recent
humiliating defeat, nothing could be sweeter than to see his victorious
adversary beaten in his own presence. Of course he understood that it
was for this purpose his father wanted the cane.

There was silence in the room while Roland was gone. Oliver was
rapidly making up his mind what he would do.

Roland ran upstairs with the cane.

"Here it is, father," he said, extending it to Mr. Kenyon.

"I will give you one more chance, Oliver," said his step-father. "You
have insulted my son and rebelled against my authority, but I do not
want to proceed to violence unless I am absolutely obliged to. I
command you once more to go and get Roland's ball."

"If you command me, sir, I must answer as I did before--I must