t knowing it. The
paper might be of value, and it might not. Tode composedly put his foot
over it, put his hands in his pockets, and stood still. Mr. Stephens
departed. There was a bit of brown paper on the floor. Tode stooped and
carefully picked that and the other crumpled bit up, and busied himself
apparently in wrapping something carefully up in the brown paper. Then
he waited again. Presently a clerk came toward him.

"Well, sir, what will you have?"

"Shoe-strings," answered Tode, gravely.

"We don't keep them in a bookstore, my boy."

"Oh, you don't. Then I may as well leave." And Tode vanished.

"Who's the wiser for that, I'd like to know?" he asked himself aloud as
soon as the door was closed. Then he started for the hotel in high glee.
He stopped under a street lamp to discover what his treasure might be,
and behold, it was a ten dollar bill! Now indeed Tode was jubilant; a
grand addition that would make to his little hoard, and visions of all
sorts of wished for treasures danced through his brain. His spirits rose
with every step; he sung and whistled and danced by turns. Had this
strange boy then forgotten the errand which had taken him out that
evening? Not by any means. He went directly to the office as soon as he
reached the house and made known to Mr. Roberts his intention of leaving
him. He stood perfectly firm under Mr. Roberts' questioning persuasions
and rather tempting offers. He squarely and distinctly gave his reasons
for leaving, and endured with a good-natured smile the laugh and the
jeers that were raised at his expense. He endured as bravely as he could
whatever there was to endure for conscience' sake that evening, and
finally went up to his room triumphant--triumphant not only in that, but
also over the fact that he had successfully stolen a ten dollar bill.
Oh, Tode, Tode! And yet there was the teaching of all his life in favor
of that way of getting money, and he knew almost nothing against it. He
had only three leaves of a Bible; he had never heard the eighth
commandment in his life. He knew in a vague general way that it was
wrong, not perhaps to steal, but to be _found_ stealing. Just why he
could not have told, but he knew positively this much, that it
generally fared ill with a person who was caught in a theft, but his
ideas were very vague and misty; besides he did not by any means call
himself a thief. He had not gone after the money, it had come to him. He
was very much elated