s over Mulligans', the flowerpot in the window,
the blue teapot on the stove, Tabby on the hearth-rug,--he could give it
all back to Aunt Win and bring her home. It would be long, long years
before the higher paths into which he had turned would yield even humble
living; but the old ways were open to him still: the "ditch-digging" with
which Dud Fielding had taunted him, the meat wagon, the sausage shop, that
he had been considering only a few hours ago. What right had he to leave
the good old woman, who had mothered him, lonely and heartsick that he
might climb beyond her reach? And yet--yet to give up Saint Andrew's, with
all that it meant to him; to give up all his hopes, his dreams; to turn
his back on those wide corridors and book-lined rooms for counter and
cleaver; to give up,--to give up! Quite dizzy with his contending
thoughts, Dan was striding on his way when a hearty voice hailed him:

"Hello! That you, Dan? Jump in and I'll give you a lift." And Pete
Patterson's ruddy face looked out from the white-topped wagon at the curb.
"I was just thinking of you," said Pete, as Dan willingly sprang up to the
seat at his side; for Pete had been a friendly creditor in the days of the
little attic home when credit was sometimes sorely needed. "Are you in
with the 'high brows' for good and all?"

"I--I don't know," hesitated Dan.

"Because if you're not," continued Pete--"and what tarnation use a sturdy
chap like you will find in all that Latin and Greek stuff, I can't
see,--if you're not in for it, I can give you a chance."

V.--A "CHANCE."

"I can give you a chance," repeated Pete, as he turned to Dan with his
broad, ruddy face illuminated by a friendly smile. "It's a chance I
wouldn't hold out to everybody, but I know you for a wide-awake youngster,
as honest as you are slick. Them two don't go together in general; but
it's the combination I'm looking fur just now, and you seem to have it. I
was thinking over it this very morning. 'Lord, Lord,' sez I to myself, 'if
Dan Dolan hadn't gone and got that eddycation bug in his head, wouldn't
this be the chance for him?"

"What is it?" asked Dan; but there was not much eagerness in his question.
Wide and springy as was the butcher's cart, it did not appeal to him as a
chariot of fortune just now. A loin of beef dangled over his head, a dead
calf was stretched out on the straw behind him. Pete's white apron was
stained with blood. Dan was conscious of a dull, sick