clerk.

"It's a good deal of money, Herbert," he said, "for a boy. There ain't
many men would pay you such a good salary."

"I earn every cent of it, Mr. Graham," said Herbert, whose views on the
salary question differed essentially from those of his employer.

The next morning Mr. Graham received a letter which evidently disturbed
him. Before referring to its contents, it is necessary to explain that
he had one son, nineteen years of age, who had gone to Boston two years
previous, to take a place in a dry-goods store on Washington Street.
Ebenezer Graham, Jr., or Eben, as he was generally called, was, in some
respects, like his father. He had the same features, and was quite as
mean, so far as others were concerned, but willing to spend money for
his own selfish pleasures. He was fond of playing pool, and cards, and
had contracted a dangerous fondness for whisky, which consumed all the
money he could spare from necessary expenses, and even more, so that, as
will presently appear, he failed to meet his board bills regularly.
Eben had served an apprenticeship in his father's store, having been,
in fact, Tom Tripp's predecessor; he tired of his father's strict
discipline, and the small pay out of which he was required to purchase
his clothes, and went to Boston to seek a wider sphere.

To do Eben justice, it must be admitted that he had good business
capacity, and if he had been able, like his father, to exercise
self-denial, and make money-getting his chief enjoyment, he would no
doubt have become a rich man in time. As it was, whenever he could make
his companions pay for his pleasures, he did so.

I now come to the letter which had brought disquietude to the
storekeeper.

It ran thus:

"DEAR SIR: I understand that you are the father of Mr. Eben Graham,
who has been a boarder at my house for the last six months. I regret to
trouble you, but he is now owing me six weeks board, and I cannot get
a cent out of him, though he knows I am a poor widow, dependent on my
board money for my rent and house expenses. As he is a minor, the law
makes you responsible for his bills, and, though I dislike to trouble
you, I am obliged, in justice to myself, to ask you to settle his board
bill, which I inclose.

"You will do me a great favor if you will send me the amount--thirty
dollars--within a week, as my rent is coming due.

"Yours respectfully, SUSAN JONES."

The feelings of a man like Ebenezer Graham can be imagined whe