rmchair and Hiram on the chopping block facing him. Hiram looked
towards the stove and Quincy said, "It is not very cold this morning, I
don't think we shall need a fire; besides, what I have got to say will
take but a short time. Now, young man," continued he, "how old did you
say you were?"

"I am about thirty," replied Hiram.

"You are about thirty?" repeated Quincy, "and yet you are satisfied to
stay with Deacon Mason and do his odd jobs for about ten dollars a month
and your board, I suppose."

"Well, he isn't a mean man," said Hiram, "he gives me ten dollars a
month and my board, and two suits of clothes a year, including shoes and
hats."

"Have you no ambition to do any better?" asked Quincy.

"Ambition?" cried Hiram, "why I'm full of it. I've thought of more than
a dozen different kinds of business that I would like to go into and
work day and night to make my fortune, but what can a feller do if he
hasn't any capital and hasn't got any backer?"

"Well, the best thing that you can do, Hiram, is to find a partner;
that's what people do when they have no money; they look around and find
somebody who has."

"You mean," said Hiram, "that I've got to look 'round and find some one
who has got some money, who's willin' to let me have part of it. There's
lots of fellers in Eastborough that have got money, but they hang to it
tighter'n the bark to a tree."

"And yet," said Quincy, "a man like Obadiah Strout can go around this
town and get parties to back him up to the extent of twenty-five hundred
dollars."

"Yes, I know," answered Hiram, "but he couldn't do that if the parties
didn't have a mortgage on the place, and o' course if Strout can't keep
up his payments they'll grab the store and get the hull business. I
happen to know that one of the parties that's goin' to put his name on
one of Strout's notes said quietly to another party that told a feller
that I heerd it from that it wouldn't be more'n a year afore he'd be
runnin' that grocery store himself."

"Well, Hiram Maxwell, I've got some money that I am not using just now.
You know that I've got quite a large account to settle with that
Professor Strout, and I can afford to pay pretty handsomely to get even
with him. Now do you think if you had that grocery store that you could
make a success of it?"

"Could I?" cried Hiram, "waal, I know I could. I know every man, woman,
and child in this town, and there isn't one of them that's got anythin'
agin m