"Here am I," he said to himself, "eighteen years old, and father treats me like a boy of ten. I'm most a man, and all he gives me for pocket-money is twenty-five cents a week. There's Dick Storrs, whose father isn't a quarter as rich as mine, gets a dollar a week. He's only sixteen, too."

 

One important difference between himself and Dick Storrs did not occur to Joshua. Dick worked in a shoe-shop, and it was out of his own wages that his father allowed him a dollar a week. Joshua earned nothing at all.

 

"It's mean!" reflected Joshua. "There aint a boy of my age in Stapleton that's so meanly treated,[Pg 128] and yet my father's the richest man in town. I wish I knew what to do to get a little money."

 

At this moment he saw Sam Crawford approaching him. Sam was perhaps a year younger than Joshua. He had formerly² lived in the village, but was now in a situation in New York, and was only in Stapleton for a few days.

 

"How are you, Joshua?" said Sam.

 

"Well enough," said Joshua. "Where are you going?"

 

"I'm going round to the ice-cream saloon. Won't you come with me?"

 

"Yes, if you'll treat. I haven't got any money."

 

"You ought to have. The old man's got plenty."

 

"That's so. But he's getting meaner every day. What do you think he allows me for spending money?"

 

"I don't know. A dollar a week?"

 

"A dollar! I should think myself lucky if I got anywhere near that. What do you say to twenty-five cents?"

 

"You don't mean to say that's all he gives you?"

 

[Pg 129]

 

"Yes, I do."

 

"Why, I can't get along on ten times that. Why don't you ask for more?"

 

"I have, fifty times; but that's all the good it does."

 

"If my father treated me like that, I'd cut his acquaintance."

 

"I don't know as that would do me any good," said Joshua, rather sensibly. "I wish I knew of any way of getting some money."

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