proprietor feel justified
in calling upon the widow for indorsement of the statement of the young
man?

This would never do.

He could not endure the humiliation of such a revelation.

The poor fellow got little encouragement from the face of the
proprietor.

This was suspicious and hard. It had scarcely the perfunctory smile of
the professional boniface.

The prospect of having to address that forbidding ensemble was
disheartening.

Suddenly his reflections were interrupted.

The proprietor waved a beckoning hand to him.

Dennis hurried to the desk.

"A letter for you," said the proprietor, as he placed in the young man's
hand an envelope addressed in a handwriting which he recognized at
once.

"'Dennis Muldoon'; yes, that's mine," and hastening to an unoccupied
seat in a remote portion of the office, Dennis hastily opened the
envelope and withdrew a short letter, and--ye gods! was it possible?--a
postal order for twenty-five dollars.

Philadelphia.

DEAR DENNIS:

It's a hard row you have to hoe, I'm a-think-in', and it's a bad
spot you have to hoe it in. I know New York of old, and it's a
lonesome place for a poor lad.

I send you the week's wages due you, and an extry five to come
back with in case your dreams don't come true.

I've got over my mad, my boy, and I'll be glad to see you.

Run over annyhow; it's a dull place without you. The mother misses
you bad.

Come Saturday if you can; I've got a business proposition I want
to make.

Tell me how you're getting on, annyway.

THE OLD MAN.

"Oh, ho!" cried Dennis. His providence was wide awake now, had made its
toilet, and was ready for business.

For a long while Dennis sat with the letter in his hand, gazing, with
unseeing eyes, upon its eccentric chirography.

His exultation had not fully materialized.

To grope in the valley of despair one moment and skip along the summit
of beatitude the next was a little too much for immediate comprehension.

Somewhat in the manner of the metaphysician, he was inclined to believe,
since his misfortune was no longer a reality, that his prosperity might
be equally immaterial, and in unaware corroboration he made a minute
tear in the edge of the postal order to establish its tangibility.

In the evening, influenced perhaps by his comparative weal, Dennis
decided that he would purchase a t