“If my last half-hour’s experience isn’t enough to disgust any one with the dry-goods business, and everything connected with it, I wouldn’t say so.”

Arthur Howard suspended for a moment the distasteful work of rolling up the bolts of goods with which his counter was covered, and gazed after a party of ladies who had just gone out.

While they were in the store he was all bows and smiles, struck imposing attitudes, fumbled with the watch-chain that hung across his vest, rested his white hands on the counter, so that the immense seal-ring he wore on the third finger of his left hand could be plainly seen, and tried in various other ways to make himself appear interesting in the eyes of his fair customers; but now he frowned fiercely, and slammed the heavy bolts about as if he were in no amiable frame of mind.

He grew angry every time he looked toward the street. The day was bright and pleasant, and not too warm for comfort, and everybody in town seemed to have come out for a ride or a promenade.

“Everybody except me sees some pleasure in this world,” said Mr. Arthur Howard, resuming his work. “I have to toil and slave all the time for wages that are barely enough to keep me in cigars; and, more than all, I can’t look forward to anything better. I shall lead a dog’s life as long as I live. If I had money I should be perfectly happy, and I would do anything in the world to get it. What did you say, sir?”

This question was addressed to one of the proprietors of the store, who leaned over the counter and said something in a tone so low that Arthur did not catch the words.

“Mr. Allen desires your presence in the office,” was the reply.

The clerk’s under jaw dropped, and he grew red and pale by turns, as he left his counter and walked toward the office, where the head of the firm, a stern old gentleman, with gold eye glasses perched on the top of his nose, sat in an easy chair waiting for him.

“Howard,” said the merchant, when the clerk in obedience to a sign from his employer, had closed the door behind him, “how much do we pay you for your services?”

“Twenty-five dollars a month, sir,” was the answer.

And the tone in which it was given was humble enough. The clerk was always cringing in his demeanor toward his superiors, and haughty and overbearing when in the presence of those whom he considered to be beneath him in the social scale. He was just the sort of person that tyrants are made of.

“Well, now, what I want to know is this,” continued the senior partner. “How can you afford to dress as you do, and sport a watch and chain, and rings, and patent-leather shoes, on twenty-five dollars a month? I can’t afford so much finery on ten times that amount. Then, your billiards and cigars must cost you a tidy sum, and you don’t get those livery horses that you drive out into the country every Sunday for nothing.”

“It takes all my salary, sir,” replied the clerk, pulling out his handkerchief and arranging his moustache, not because it needed arranging, but because he wanted to conceal his face from his employer.

He knew that it was as red as fire, for he could feel it burn.

“Are you sure that you don’t spend more than your salary?” asked the merchant, in a very significant tone of voice.

“Oh, yes, sir! yes, sir!—quite sure!” replied Mr. Howard, with more earnestness than the occasion seemed to demand.

He wanted to add, “You surely do not suspect me of dishonesty?” but the words stuck in his throat.

“Well,” said the merchant, after looking sharply at the clerk for a moment, “all I have to say is, that you can make twenty-five dollars go much further than I can. I cannot permit so much extravagance among those in my employ, for, to say the least, it looks suspicious. So I have called you in here for the purpose of telling you that we shall have no further occasion for your services. There is the money we owe you. Good-day!”

“I am well out of that scrape,” said Mr. Howard to himself, as he walked rapidly away from the store. “I have been looking for it for a long time, and I am glad it is over. They can’t prove anything against me, for I have been very careful, and never took more than two dollars at a time. Of course, when the receipts ran up to two or three hundred dollars a day, so small an amount as that wouldn’t be missed. Now, where shall I look for another situation? Well, I’ll not think about that now. ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’ as Shakespeare says. I guess I’ll smoke.”

This soliloquy would seem to indicate that trouble sat very lightly on Mr. Howard’s shoulders, and that he was not very well posted in either Shakespeare or the Bible.

It would also seem to indicate that the suspicions his late employer entertained regarding his honesty were well founded.

Mr. Howard did not care a snap of his finger for those suspicions; but he did care for the loss of his situation, for he knew that if he did not work he could get no money to spend.

He turned into a little cigar store while he was communing with himself, and when he came out, with a freshly-lighted Havana between his fingers, he saw a sight that enraged him.

An elegant top-buggy, drawn by a pair of stylish, high-stepping horses, which moved as if they were proud of the gold-mounted harness they wore, dashed along the street.

The reins were held by an exquisitely-dressed young gentleman who managed them adroitly with one hand, while with the other he saluted the friends and acquaintances he saw on the sidewalk. But there was no salute for Mr. Howard—only a barely perceptible nod of the head, which the latter pretended he did not see.

“I declare, it’s enough to make one do something desperate,” thought he, as he threw his cigar spitefully into the gutter and resumed his walk. “Look at me, and then look at Coal Oil Tom! I have just seventy dollars in my pocket, less what I paid for that cigar, and no prospect of getting any more. Five years ago Tom was a hostler in a hotel stable, somewhere in Pennsylvania—a low, ignorant hostler—and all he had in the world was a little, rocky farm that he couldn’t give away. But oil was discovered on that farm, and to-day Tom is worth half a million dollars. He doesn’t know enough to keep him over night, but his money takes him into the best society, while I—I wish those horses would run away, and throw him out and break his neck!”

Mr. Howard stopped, and looked back at the carriage that contained the object of his envy, as if he fully expected that his amiable wish would be gratified. But the rapidly-moving trotters were kept under perfect control, and in a short time took their driver safely out of Mr. Howard’s sight.

A quarter of an hour’s walk brought the clerk to his home—a little cottage in an obscure street, whose surroundings bore testimony to the poverty or shiftlessness of its occupants.

The house, as well as the fence in front of it, was sadly in need of paint; some of the blinds hung by one hinge, disclosing to the public gaze windows with broken panes and sashes heavily festooned with cobwebs; and the flower garden, once the pride of Arthur’s mother, now dead and gone, had been given up to weeds, which also covered the walk that led from the gate through a narrow alley to the back door.

“This is a pretty place for a white man to call home, I must say!” said the clerk to himself, while bitterness rankled in his heart. “When I come here, after passing the fine houses on Crosby Street, where those happy young people spend every afternoon in playing croquet on the finely-kept lawns, I tell you it makes me feel wicked when I contrast their circumstances with my own. No one ever thinks of inviting me to make one of such a party, and yet I am just as good as the best of them. It’s the ready cash that determines one’s position in this world. I wonder what the governor will have to say to me? Of course I shall not tell him why I was discharged.”

Passing through the kitchen, where a slovenly servant girl was moving leisurely about making preparations for supper, Arthur entered the sitting-room, and found there a shabby-genteel old man, who was slowly pacing the floor. This was Arthur’s father—the “Uncle Bob” after whom our hero had been named.

He was not a man to inspire confidence at the first glance, and the longer you looked at him, the less you would like him. He had an insinuating—or rather, a sneaking—air that he could not shake off, and his movements, as he trod the thread-bare carpet with his well-worn gaiters, reminded you of the stealthy actions of a fox.

He had a high and very narrow forehead, a pair of piercing gray eyes, which looked at you from under shaggy brows, and a long, thin nose—a nose that seemed formed for thrusting itself into other people’s affairs, and for finding out secrets that its owner had no business to know.

Uncle Bob, as we shall call him in this story, had once been in business for himself; but he was a gentleman of leisure now.

Following the example of more respected men, he had gone as heavily in debt as his limited credit would allow, and failed when the proper time came. But it is a dangerous thing for one to fail in business with his pockets full, unless they are very full, and Uncle Bob’s creditors had looked so closely into his way of doing business, that he barely escaped being taken in hand by the law.

It was from this man that Arthur had inherited his great desire for wealth and his utter abhorrence of any kind of work.

“You are home early to-night,” said Uncle Bob, pausing in his walk.

“Yes,” was the indifferent reply. “And I shall probably be at home earlier to-morrow night. I have got my walking-papers.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Uncle Bob, elevating his shaggy eyebrows. “What for?”

“Too many clerks.”

“And what are you going to do now? You can’t live without work.”

“I know that; but I shall not look for another place until the seventy dollars I have in my pocket are gone. I am going to make believe that it is two thousand, and live like a gentleman for awhile. It is hard to be poor. You don’t respect yourself and no one respects you. What is it, Jane?” he added, turning to the servant girl who just then opened the door.

“A letter for Mr. Howard,” replied the girl.

“A letter?” repeated Uncle Bob, with a shade of anxiety in his tones. “Why, it’s a telegram. Who in the world—”

He closed the door behind the girl, and stood with his eyes fastened on the envelope as if he hoped to find something there that would tell him where the dispatch came from and what it contained.

“Hand it over here and I will read it for you,” said Arthur, after he had waited until his patience was all exhausted.

His father probably did not hear the request, or, if he did, he paid no attention to it. He seated himself in the nearest chair and tore open the envelope with the most exasperating deliberation.

Like Micawber, he had long clung firmly to the hope that something would “turn up” in his favor—that the fickle goddess who had hitherto frowned upon him would change her frowns to smiles—and he little imagined how near he was to seeing his fond dream realized.