ked around again the little old man was gone.

"Never mind, I'll go and see him the first chance I have," said Bert,
as he looked at the pencilled strip of newspaper margin again before
putting it into his pocket.

He then went round to his miserable quarters, in the top of a cheap
lodging-house, where he made himself ready, by means of soap and water
and a broken comb, to walk five miles into the suburbs and get a
sight, if only for five minutes, of his mother.

On the following Monday Bert, having a leisure hour, went to call on
his new acquaintance in Devonshire Street.

Having climbed the two flights, he found the door of the back room at
the right ajar, and looking in, saw Mr. Crooker at a desk, in the act
of receiving a roll of money from a well-dressed visitor.

Bert entered unnoticed and waited till the money was counted and a
receipt signed. Then, as the visitor departed, old Mr. Crooker looked
round and saw Bert. He offered him a chair, then turned to lock up the
money in a safe.

"So this is your place of business?" said Bert, glancing about the
plain office room. "What do you do here?"

"I buy real estate sometimes--sell--rent--and so forth."

"Who for?" asked Bert.

"For myself," said little old Mr. Crooker, with a smile.

Bert stared, perfectly aghast at the situation. This, then, was the
man whom he had invited to dinner, and treated so patronizingly the
preceding Thursday!

"I--I thought--you was a poor man."

"I _am_ a poor man," said Mr. Crooker, locking his safe. "Money
doesn't make a man rich. I've money enough. I own houses in the city.
They give me something to think of, and so keep me alive. I had truer
riches once, but I lost them long ago."

From the way the old man's voice trembled and eyes glistened, Bert
thought he must have meant by these riches friends he had lost--wife
and children, perhaps.

"To think of _me_ inviting _you_ to dinner!" the boy cried, abashed
and ashamed.

"It _was_ odd." And Mr. Crooker showed his white front teeth with a
smile. "But it may turn out to have been a lucky circumstance for both
of us. I like you; I believe in you; and I've an offer to make to you:
I want a trusty, bright boy in this office, somebody I can bring up to
my business, and leave it with, as I get too old to attend to it
myself. What do you say?"

What _could_ Bert say?

Again that afternoon he walked--or rather, ran--to his mother, and
after consulting with her, joyfully acc