A Northern Gentleman by Lane Everett

Drucker grew up as the son of a bank president and his father intends to have him take over upon his retirement.  Just because he only looks busy and doesn't do much doesn't matter.  Bank Presidents preside over affairs and do PR, they don't do mundane daily work.  The longer he thinks about, the more Drucker dreads it.  He wants to experience life and pick out what HE wants to do with his life.  When he confesses that, his father throws him out.  He's not worried.  He'll go to Boston and find the woman who acted like a nanny during his younger years.  It would be good to see her again and he's never been anywhere but Atlanta.  He almost misses the train but he leaps on and is off.

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Drucker's luck isn't holding.  Instead of going to Boston, his train is taking him to Texas.  He'll have to wait before he can get on a different train.  In the meantime he listens to some older women chat and finds out the town they are going to has a horse thief.  They're hiring a Pinkerton man to come and find the thief.  He follows them off the train and the mayor meets him, sure he's the Pinkerton man.  He says he is and then he has to find thief...

When the mayor wants him to marry his plain daughter and be the next mayor of the town, he boards the train again.  He's heading for California now.

Set in 1890, this takes you back to the past.  Life was simpler then in some ways but it seems we all have to take the journey Drucker is taking to mature in life.  He falls in love, cons a man and gets conned himself, works as a campaign manager and finds out his father has died.  His antics are entertaining and amusing.  Only someone used to acting could do all the things he accomplished but he used to act like a banker so he knows what to do.  He might have started out with an intention to be a Northern gentleman but that didn't work out.  And it's all for the best.