At first, the thought that he
was falling below the two dollar limit troubled him sorely until he
remembered that everything must have a beginning. Just wait until a year
from now; he'd make five dollars a week, he would!

"I'll bet you five thousand dollars that I do," he had told Silvey when
that youngster scoffed at his plans as they walked to school, one bleak,
overcast noon. Needless to say, Bill did not meet the wager. He wasn't
accustomed to thinking in such large sums and, besides, John's manner
was singularly convincing.

Louise, the business man scarcely saw at all, save to walk home with her
from school now and then, or to take her on Sunday expeditions to the
park. On one of the strolls, she told of further experiments in the
science of cookery. "And mother says you can come up and watch,
tomorrow."

He declined as diplomatically as possible. Nondelivery of the papers
spelled failure for the new business. Would she mind?

Louise shook her head. Nevertheless, John felt that she was hurt. Hang
it all, couldn't a girl understand? How was the thousand dollars which
was to start them housekeeping to be earned if he loafed away his
afternoons?

Mrs. Fletcher took him down town the Saturday before Thanksgiving.
Already the holiday throngs were beginning to fill the noisy, grimy
streets and passage, in them was both tedious and difficult for a small
boy. Weary after the morning of tramping from store to store, they were
returning to the railroad station when a display in a furniture store
window caught his eye.

Rich plush hangings and an occasional picture gave the impression of the
walls of a room. In the center, a shiny mahogany bed stood, with a
dresser of like material and fragile, spindle-legged chairs grouped
around it.

He tugged at his mother's hand to stop a moment. She obeyed indulgently,
as his eyes became glued to the little sign in the foreground.

"Bedroom set. Adam style. Reduced to _three hundred and sixty-five
dollars_."

He gasped. Three hundred and sixty-five dollars for a bed and a dresser
and chairs which would break the first time a small boy plumped down on
them! Then came the appalling thought: _"How far would a thousand
dollars last with such prices?"_

All the speeding ride homeward, and after supper as he stretched out on
the bed before undressing, he worried over this new and unexpected
problem. If bedroom furniture _alone_ cost that much and the pictures
and carpet were st