r.'

'Older,' repeated the old man, with a quiet chuckle. 'How old are you?'

'Nineteen.'

'Nineteen, are you? Well, you look it. You've vastly improved of late. I
suppose you think yourself rather an ill-used sort of person--ill used
by me, I mean?'

'I don't think you pay me enough, if you mean that,' said Walter, with a
little laugh; 'but I'm going to ask a rise.'

'Why have you stayed here so long, if that is your mind? Nobody was
compelling you.'

'No; but I've got used to the place, and I like it,' returned Walter
frankly; but he bent his eyes on his books, as if there was something
more behind his words which he did not care should be revealed.

'I see--it's each man for himself in this world, and deil tak' the
hindmost, as they say; but I don't think you'll be hindmost. Suppose,
now, you were to find yourself the boss of this concern, what would you
do?'

'Carry it on as best I could, sir,' answered Walter, in surprise.

'Ay, but how? I suppose you think you'd reorganise it all?' said the old
man rather sarcastically.

'Well, I would,' admitted Walter frankly.

'In what way? Just tell me how you'd do it?'

'Well, I'd be off, somehow or other, with all these old debts, sir, and
then I'd begin a new business on different principles. I couldn't stand
so much carrying over of old scores to new accounts, if I were on my own
hook. You never know where you are, and it's cruel to the poor wretches
who are always owing; they can't have any independence. Its a poor way
of doing business.'

'Oh, indeed! You are not afraid to speak your mind, my young bantam. And
pray, where did you pick up all these high and mighty notions?'

'They may be high and mighty, sir, but they're common-sense,' responded
Walter, without perturbation. 'You know yourself how you've been worried
to death almost, and what a watching these slippery customers need. It
is not worth the trouble.'

'Is it not? Pray, how do you know that?' inquired the old man, his eyes
glittering as he asked the question. 'I don't know, of course, but you
always say you are a poor man,' replied Walter, as he put down the
figures of a sum on his slate.

'But you don't believe it, eh? Perhaps that's why you've stuck to me
like a leech so long,' he said, with his most disagreeable smile; but
Walter never answered. They had been together now for some years, and
there was a curious sort of understanding--a liking, even--between them;
and of late Walter had