pts to hopeless debtors, "three dollars a week is not going to keep
your family, to say nothing of paying up that seven dollars. I can't
carry you forever, you know. Why don't you get a daylight job?"

"Ah, that is easy enough said," protested that injured individual.
"'Aven't I tramped the streets day after day, lookin' for work?"

"Them as 'as a good paying business don't know wot it means to look for
a job," pursued Cadge bitterly.

"Yes they do," asserted the grocer cheerfully. "I was given work at
sweeping floors in the very store I now own. The fact is, I am sorry for
you, Cadge, and I have been looking around to get you a job."

Mr. Cadge seemed depressed.

"And I am glad to say," chirruped Mr. Snavely, "that I have found a
small piece of work for you, which will be worth a dollar and a half a
day."

Cadge's brow was still gloomy.

"Of course, it is real work," added his kind-hearted creditor, briskly,
"no sitting in the sun and watching other people's shovels; but a
customer of mine, a widow lady, that lives along Catnip Creek, wants a
man to pile up a wall of loose stones to keep her land from washing away
in high water."

Thomas Cadge shook his head with the air of Caesar virtuously refusing
the crown.

"No, no, Snavely, it wouldn't do," he said. "I can see that it would
interfere with my present h'occupation, and I can't afford to risk
losing this 'ere job. Supposin' my family was to be turned out of
doors!"

"Nonsense! It will only take you about four days to build the wall, and
at one-fifty per day, that will be six dollars, twice your week's wages
right there, and almost enough to pay what you owe me."

"I am afraid it can't be done, Snavely; the company might not like it;
you see, I would be competing with them, that's their line."

"They wouldn't handle so small a job. You know that, Cadge."

"Yes, but a man can't draw pay for two positions at once; 't ain't
honest."

"Why, this is not a regular situation," protested the upright Snavely,
who saw his bill still unpaid; "you could work on it at odd times if you
like. She'll pay you by the piece, I am pretty sure, and you will get
your six dollars cash when the wall is done."

The furtive eyes of the hunter of work avoided those of his benefactor.
He was pondering a new excuse when he happened to notice Master Cadge,
aged nine, Thomas Cadge, Jr., aged eight, and Arabella Cadge, whose
years were six, busily constructing a fort of cobblesto