fourteen hours a day," retorted Chester.

"I'm afraid you're gettin' lazy. Boys shouldn't complain of their work.
The fact is, Chester, I feel as if I was payin' you too much."

"Too much! Three dollars a week too much!"

"Too much, considerin' the state of business, and yourself bein' a boy.
I've been meanin' to tell you that I've got a chance to get a cheaper
boy."

"Who is it?" asked Chester, in dismay.

"It's Abel Wood. Abel Wood is every mite as big and strong as you are,
and he come round last evenin' and said he'd work for two dollars and a
quarter a week."

"I couldn't work for that," said Chester.

"I don't mind bein' generous, considerin' you've been working for me
more than a year. I'll give you two dollars and a half. That's
twenty-five cents more'n the Wood boy is willin' to take."

"Abel Wood doesn't know anything about store work."

"I'll soon learn him. Sitooated as I am, I feel that I must look after
every penny," and Mr. Tripp's face looked meaner and more weazened than
ever as he fixed his small, bead-like eyes on his boy clerk.

"Then I guess I'll have to leave you, Mr. Tripp," said Chester, with a
deep feeling of disgust and dismay.

"Do just as you like," said his employer. "You're onreasonable to
expect to get high pay when business is dull."

"High pay!" repeated Chester, bitterly. "Three dollars a week!"

"It's what I call high pay. When I was a boy, I only earned two dollars
a week."

"Money would go further when you were a boy."

"Yes, it did. Boys wasn't so extravagant in them days."

"I don't believe you were ever extravagant, Mr. Tripp," said Chester,
with a tinge of sarcasm which his employer didn't detect.

"No, I wasn't. I don't want to brag, but I never spent a cent
foolishly. Do you know how much money I spent the first three months I
was at work?"

"A dollar?" guessed Chester.

"A dollar!" repeated Mr. Tripp, in a tone of disapproval. "No, I only
spent thirty-seven cents."

"Then I don't wonder you got rich," said Chester, with a curl of the
lip.

"I ain't rich," said Silas Tripp, cautiously. "Who told you I was?"

"Everybody says so."

"Then everybody is wrong. I'm a leetle 'forehanded, that's all."

"I've heard people say you could afford to give up work and live on the
interest of your money."

Silas Tripp held up his hands as if astounded.

"'Tain't so," he said, sharply. "If I gave up business, I'd soon be in
the poorhouse. Well, what do you say?