“Have you found a new room, Paul?” he asked, eagerly.

“I haven’t had time,” Paul answered, “but I’ll go at once and see about it.”

“James will be here tomorrow,” said the old man, nervously¹, “and I—I am afraid of him. He is a bad man. He wants me to give him money. You know I have no money, Paul?” he concluded with a look of appeal.

Now Paul knew that old Jerry had money, and he could not truthfully answer as the old man desired him.

“You say so, and that is enough,” he said.

“But it’s true,” urged Jerry, who understood the doubt in Paul’s mind. “How could I get any money? What you give me is all we have to live on.”

“That isn’t much, at any rate.”

“No, Paul, it isn’t much. Couldn’t you give me half a dollar more? Two dollars and a half are very little for me to live on and pay the rent,” whined² the old man.

The appeal would have moved Paul if he had not suspected that the old man had a considerable sum of money laid away. As it was, it only disgusted him and made him feel angry at Jerry’s attempt to deceive him.

[46]

“Are you sure you get no money except what I give you?” he asked, pointedly³.

“What do you mean, Paul?” demanded the old man, looking alarmed. “What gave you the idea that I had any other money?”

“At any rate,” said the telegraph boy, “you haven’t any money to throw away on this son of yours. I have no doubt he’s a bad man, as you say.”

“He was always bad and troublesome, James was,” said old Jerry. “He was always wanting money from the time he was a boy.”

“When he was a boy there was some reason for his asking it, but now he is a man grown, isn’t he?”

“Yes, yes.”

“How old is he?”

“James must be nigh upon thirty,” answered Jerry, after a little reflection. “You won’t hire too expensive a room, Paul?” he added. “You know we are poor, very poor!”

“Not unless I am willing to pay the extra cost myself.”

“Don’t do that! Give me the extra money, Paul,” said Jerry, with eager

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