On
Saturday evening, when you are released from your present position, call
at the house and receive your ticket and final instructions."

"Thank you, sir."

Mr. Gilbert rang a little bell, and a boy appeared.

"Go to the bank and get this check cashed," said the merchant.

In a few minutes he returned with a roll of bills.

"Count them over and see if they are right, Mark."

"Yes, sir; they are correct."

"Very good! Remember that they are for your mother. Tell her also that
if you remain longer than I anticipate, and she gets short of money, she
can call at my office and I will supply her with more."

Mark left the office in a state of joyful excitement.

He was to make a long journey across the continent. He would see many
states and cities, and become acquainted with places which he now knew
only by hearsay. And after he returned his prospects would be brighter,
for Mr. Gilbert had promised to find him a position at least equal to
the one he resigned.

In the afternoon as Mark was returning from an errand in West Fiftieth
Street, he saw Edgar Talbot in the neighborhood of Bryant Park.

"Hallo!" said Edgar condescendingly. "Are you on an errand?"

"Yes."

"Ho, ho! how you will look in a telegraph boy's uniform when you are a
young man of twenty-five."

"What makes you think I am going to be a telegraph boy so long?"

"Because you are not fit for any other business."

Mark smiled.

"I am sorry for that," he said, "for as it happens I have tendered my
resignation."

"You don't mean that you are going to leave the messenger service?"

"Yes."

"But how are you going to live? It won't be any use to ask father for
money."

"I presume not."

"Perhaps," suggested Edgar hopefully, "you have been discharged."

"I discharged myself."

"Have you got another position?"

"I am going to travel for a while."

Edgar Talbot was more and more perplexed. In fact he had always found
Mark a perplexing problem.

"How can you travel without money?"

"Give it up. I don't propose to."

"Have you got any money?"

Mark happened to have with him the roll of bills given him for his
mother. He drew it out.

"Do you mean to say that is yours? How much is there?"

"A hundred dollars."

"I don't believe it is yours."

"It isn't. It belongs to my mother."

"But father said she was very poor."

"At any rate this money belongs to her."

"Where are you going to travel?"

"Out West."

This was all the