"How long will I have to stay in?" asked Dick.
"At least a week. Perhaps longer. You require nourishing food, and your nerves need quieting. You are not used to this life."
"No," said Dick softly, and again there came to him the troublesome question of what sort a life he was accustomed to, and who he was.
"But you must not worry," cautioned the doctor. "You'll be well taken care of, and in a short time you can go out again."
In a few days Dick was enough better so that he did not need any one with him constantly. Jimmy, therefore, could go out on the streets selling papers, for Mr. Snowden or some of the men employed about the lodging-house looked in Dick's room several times during the day to see if he needed anything.
"Lots of men is askin' for you," said Jimmy, when he came home one night. "Sam Schmidt is takin' care of your customers down in Wall Street, and they want to know when you're comin' back. They say they're waitin' for you, and for a while they'll buy of Sam. He tried to explain that he was workin' for you, but he can't twist his Dutch tongue well enough yet. But I guess it's all right."
Dick did not recover as quickly as the doctor expected he would, and he had been in bed over a week, for the fever did not seem to yield to the treatment.
"It must be some trouble that I can't get at," said the baffled physician one day to Mr. Snowden. "Perhaps that blow he got just before he found himself in the box may have had something to do with it. If he doesn't get better soon I'll have him taken to the hospital. We may have to operate."
"Oh, no; not until it's necessary. I'll try some new medicine."
It was the day following this that something happened which changed everything, and while at the time it seemed to Jimmy quite a misfortune, in the end it turned into a blessing.
As might be expected, Mike Conroy and Bulldog Smouder were much incensed at the failure of their plot. Jimmy had reached New York much quicker than they had thought he would, thanks to the kindness of the woman who supplied him with carfare, and to whom, with Dick's help that same night, he had mailed back the twenty-five cents with a letter of thanks. Then, too, Sam's unexpected aid and his beating of Bulldog made that bully very angry. So the two cronies were looking for a chance to get "even," as they called it.