Sam's Chance And How He Improved It by Horatio Alger
Sam's Chance And How He Improved It by Horatio Alger
"If I'm goin' into a office I'll have to buy some new clo'es," thought
Sam Barker.
He was a boy of fifteen, who, for three years, had been drifting about the streets of New York, getting his living as he could; now blacking boots, now selling papers, now carrying bundles-"everything by turns, and nothing long." He was not a model boy, as those who have read his early history, in "The Young Outlaw," are aware; but, on the other hand, he was not extremely bad. He liked fun, even if it involved mischief; and he could not be called strictly truthful nor honest. But he would not wantonly injure or tyrannize over a smaller boy, and there was nothing mean or malicious about him. Still he was hardly the sort of boy a merchant would be likely to select as an office boy, and but for a lucky chance Sam would have been compelled to remain a bootblack or newsboy. One day he found, in an uptown street, a little boy, who had strayed away from his nurse, and, ascertaining where he lived, restored him to his anxious parents. For this good deed he was rewarded by a gift of five dollars and the offer of a position as errand boy, at five dollars a week.
Sam decided that he must have some new clothes before he could enter upon his place. At present his costume consisted of a ragged shirt, and a pair of equally ragged pantaloons. Both were of unknown antiquity, and had done faithful service, not only to Sam, but to a former owner. It was quite time they were released from duty.
To buy a complete outfit with five dollars might have puzzled many an able financier. But Sam knew just where to go. Somewhere in the neighborhood of Baxter Street there was a second-hand clothing establishment, which he had patronized on previous occasions, and where he knew that the prices were low. It was to this place that he bent his steps.
A wrinkled old man-the proprietor-stood outside, scanning, with cunning eyes, the passers-by. If any one paused to examine his stock, he was immediately assailed by voluble recommendations of this or that article, and urgently entreated to "just step inside."
When Sam approached, the old man's shrewdness was at fault. He did not suspect that the ragged street boy was likely to become a customer, and merely suffered his glance to rest upon him casually.
But Sam accosted him with a business-like manner.
"Look here, old man, have you got any tiptop clo'es to sell to-day?"
"Yes, my son," answered the old man, with an air of alacrity.
"Who are you a-takin' to? I ain't your son, and I wouldn't be. My father's a member of Congress."
"Did he send you here to buy clo'es?" asked the old man, with a grin.
"Yes, he did. He said you'd let me have 'em half price."
"So I will, my-boy. This is the cheapest place in the city."
"Well, old man, trot out your best suits. I want 'em in the style, you know."
"I know that from your looks," said the old man, a grin illumining his wrinkled face, as he glanced at the rags Sam wore.
"Oh, you needn't look at these. My best clo'es is to home in the wardrobe. What have you got for shirts?"
A red-flannel article was displayed; but Sam didn't like the color.
"It ain't fashionable," he said.
"Here's a blue one," said the old man.
"That's more like, how much is it?"
"Fifty cents."
"Fifty cents! Do you want to ruin me? I won't give no fifty cents for a shirt."
"It's worth more. It cost me forty-five."
"I'll give thirty-five."
After some haggling the price was accepted, and the article was laid aside.
"Now show me some of your nice suits," said Sam. "I've got a place, and I want to look like a gentleman."
"Have you got any money?" asked the old man, with the momentary suspicion that he might be throwing his time and trouble away upon a penniless purchaser.
"Yes," said Sam. "What do you take me for?"
"How much have you got?"
"What do you want to know for?"
"I want to know what clo'es to show you."
Sam was about to answer five dollars, when a shrewd thought changed his intention.
"I've got four dollars," he said.
Even this was beyond the expectations of the dealer.
"All right, my son," he said. "I'll give you some nice clo'es for four dollars."
"You'd better if you want me to come here again. If you do well by me
I'll get all my clo'es here."
A young man of fashion could not have spoken more condescendingly, or with an air of greater importance than Sam. He was right in thinking that his patronage was of importance to the old man.
"I'll dress you so fine the gals will look at you as you go along the street," he said.
"Go ahead!" said Sam. "Do your best by me, and I'll send my friends here."
Without going into details, it may be said that our hero selected everything to his satisfaction except a coat. Here he was rather particular. Finally, he espied a blue coat with brass buttons, hanging in a corner.
"Take down that coat," he said, "I guess that'll suit me."
"That costs too much. I can't give you that and the rest of the things for four dollars."
"Why can't you?"
"I'd lose too much."
Opposition confirmed Sam in his determination to own it.
"Give it to me; I'll try it on," he said.
Putting it on, he surveyed himself with satisfaction, in a small, cracked mirror. True, it was about two sizes too large, but Sam felt that in getting more cloth he was getting a better bargain.
"That's my style," he said. "Don't I look fashionable?"
"I'll have to ask you twenty-five cents more for that coat," said the old dealer.
"No, you won't."
"Yes, I must. I ought to ask more."
"Then you may keep the rest of the clo'es. I don't want 'em."
Sam made a movement as if to leave the store.
"Give me twenty cents more, my son."
"Didn't I tell you I wasn't your son? I won't give you no twenty cents, but I'll tell you what I'll do-I'll give you these clo'es I've got on."
The old man looked at them dubiously.
"They ain't worth much," he said.
"I know they ain't but they're worth twenty cents."
There was another critical inspection, and the decision was given in
Sam's favor.
"You may have the clo'es," said the old man. "Now, where's your money?"
Sam produced a five-dollar bill.
"Give me a dollar back," he said.
The old man looked at him with the expression of one who had been cheated.
"You said you had only four dollars," he complained.
"No, I didn't. I said I had four. I didn't say that was all."
"These clo'es are worth five dollars."
"No, they ain't, and you won't get it from me. Do you think I'm going to give you all the money I've got?"
The old man still looked dissatisfied. "I'm losin' money on these clo'es," he muttered.
"Oh, well if you don't want to sell 'em, you needn't," said Sam, independently. "There's another place round the corner."
"Give me four fifty."
"No, I won't. I won't give you another cent. I'll give you four dollars and these clo'es I have on. A bargain's a bargain. If you're goin' to do it, say the word; and if you ain't, I'm off."
Sam carried his point, and received back a dollar in change.
"You needn't send the clo'es round to my hotel-I'll change 'em here," said our hero.
He set to work at once, and in five minutes the change was effected. The other clothes fitted him moderately well, but the blue coat-of the kind popularly called a swallow-tail-nearly trailed upon the ground. But for that Sam cared little. He surveyed himself with satisfaction, and felt that he was well dressed.
"I guess I'll do now," he said to himself, complacently, as he walked out of the shop.
The Young Outlaw or, Adrift in the Streets by Horatio Alger
In A New World or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia by Horatio Alger
I stood outside my husband's study, the perfect mafia wife, only to hear him mocking me as an "ice sculpture" while he entertained his mistress, Aria. But the betrayal went deeper than infidelity. A week later, my saddle snapped mid-jump, leaving me with a shattered leg. Lying in the hospital bed, I overheard the conversation that killed the last of my love. My husband, Alessandro, knew Aria had sabotaged my gear. He knew she could have killed me. Yet, he told his men to let it go. He called my near-death experience a "lesson" because I had bruised his mistress's ego. He humiliated me publicly, freezing my accounts to buy family heirlooms for her. He stood by while she threatened to leak our private tapes to the press. He destroyed my dignity to play the hero for a woman he thought was a helpless orphan. He had no idea she was a fraud. He didn't know I had installed micro-cameras throughout the estate while he was busy pampering her. He didn't know I had hours of footage showing his "innocent" Aria sleeping with his guards, his rivals, and even his staff, laughing about how easy he was to manipulate. At the annual charity gala, in front of the entire crime family, Alessandro demanded I apologize to her. I didn't beg. I didn't cry. I simply connected my drive to the main projector and pressed play.
I died on a Tuesday. It wasn't a quick death. It was slow, cold, and meticulously planned by the man who called himself my father. I was twenty years old. He needed my kidney to save my sister. The spare part for the golden child. I remember the blinding lights of the operating theater, the sterile smell of betrayal, and the phantom pain of a surgeon's scalpel carving into my flesh while my screams echoed unheard. I remember looking through the observation glass and seeing him-my father, Giovanni Vitiello, the Don of the Chicago Outfit-watching me die with the same detached expression he used when signing a death warrant. He chose her. He always chose her. And then, I woke up. Not in heaven. Not in hell. But in my own bed, a year before my scheduled execution. My body was whole, unscarred. The timeline had reset, a glitch in the cruel matrix of my existence, giving me a second chance I never asked for. This time, when my father handed me a one-way ticket to London-an exile disguised as a severance package-I didn't cry. I didn't beg. My heart, once a bleeding wound, was now a block of ice. He didn't know he was talking to a ghost. He didn't know I had already lived through his ultimate betrayal. He also didn't know that six months ago, during the city's brutal territory wars, I was the one who saved his most valuable asset. In a secret safe house, I stitched up the wounds of a blinded soldier, a man whose life hung by a thread. He never saw my face. He only knew my voice, the scent of vanilla, and the steady touch of my hands. He called me Sette. Seven. For the seven stitches I put in his shoulder. That man was Dante Moretti. The Ruthless Capo. The man my sister, Isabella, is now set to marry. She stole my story. She claimed my actions, my voice, my scent. And Dante, the man who could spot a lie from a mile away, believed the beautiful deception because he wanted it to be true. He wanted the golden girl to be his savior, not the invisible sister who was only ever good for her spare parts. So I took the ticket. In my past life, I fought them, and they silenced me on an operating table. This time, I will let them have their perfect, gilded lie. I will go to London. I will disappear. I will let Seraphina Vitiello die on that plane. But I will not be a victim. This time, I will not be the lamb led to slaughter. This time, from the shadows of my exile, I will be the one holding the match. And I will wait, with the patience of the dead, to watch their entire world burn. Because a ghost has nothing to lose, and a queen of ashes has an empire to gain.
After two years of marriage, Sadie was finally pregnant. Filled with hope and joy, she was blindsided when Noah asked for a divorce. During a failed attempt on her life, Sadie found herself lying in a pool of blood, desperately calling Noah to ask him to save her and the baby. But her calls went unanswered. Shattered by his betrayal, she left the country. Time passed, and Sadie was about to be wed for a second time. Noah appeared in a frenzy and fell to his knees. "How dare you marry someone else after bearing my child?"
Narine never expected to survive. Not after what was done to her body, mind, and soul. But fate had other plans. Rescued by Supreme Alpha Sargis, the kingdom's most feared ruler, she finds herself under the protection of a man she doesn't know... and a bond she doesn't understand. Sargis is no stranger to sacrifice. Ruthless, ambitious, and loyal to the sacred matebond, he's spent years searching for the soul fate promised him, never imagining she would come to him broken, on the brink of death, and afraid of her own shadow. He never meant to fall for her... but he does. Hard and fast. And he'll burn the world before letting anyone hurt her again. What begins in silence between two fractured souls slowly grows into something intimate and real. But healing is never linear. With the court whispering, the past clawing at their heels, and the future hanging by a thread, their bond is tested again and again. Because falling in love is one thing. Surviving it? That's a war of its own. Narine must decide, can she survive being loved by a man who burns like fire, when all she's ever known is how not to feel? Will she shrink for the sake of peace, or rise as Queen for the sake of his soul? For readers who believe even the most fractured souls can be whole again, and that true love doesn't save you. It stands beside you while you save yourself.
For eight years, Cecilia Moore was the perfect Luna, loyal, and unmarked. Until the day she found her Alpha mate with a younger, purebred she-wolf in his bed. In a world ruled by bloodlines and mating bonds, Cecilia was always the outsider. But now, she's done playing by wolf rules. She smiles as she hands Xavier the quarterly financials-divorce papers clipped neatly beneath the final page. "You're angry?" he growls. "Angry enough to commit murder," she replies, voice cold as frost. A silent war brews under the roof they once called home. Xavier thinks he still holds the power-but Cecilia has already begun her quiet rebellion. With every cold glance and calculated step, she's preparing to disappear from his world-as the mate he never deserved. And when he finally understands the strength of the heart he broke... It may be far too late to win it back.
My wealthy husband, Nathaniel, stormed in, demanding a divorce to be with his "dying" first love, Julia. He expected tears, pleas, even hysteria. Instead, I calmly reached for a pen, ready to sign away our life for a fortune. For two years, I played the devoted wife in our sterile penthouse. That night, Nathaniel shattered the facade, tossing divorce papers. "Julia's back," he stated, "she needs me." He expected me to crumble. But my calm "Okay" shocked him. I coolly demanded his penthouse, shares, and a doubled stipend, letting him believe I was a greedy gold digger. He watched, disgusted, convinced I was a monster. He couldn't fathom my indifference or ruthless demands. He saw avarice, not a carefully constructed facade. His betrayal had awakened something far more dangerous. The second the door closed, the dutiful wife vanished. I retrieved a burner phone and a Glock, ready to expose the elaborate lie he and Julia had built.
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