outgrown? This fellow is shorter than Tom, I should think. He'll work
for his board and clothes, of course, for the present. Can you make it
go, Mr. Roberts?"

Mr. Roberts thought he could, and as Mr. Hastings drew on his gloves he
remarked to that gentleman aside:

"I've taken a most unaccountable interest in the young scamp. He's a
_scamp_, no mistake about that, and he'll have to be looked after very
closely. But then he's sharp, sharp as steel; just the sort to develop
into a business man with the right kind of training, such as he will
receive here. The way in which he wheedled me into bringing him home
with me was a most astonishing proceeding. I shall have to tell you all
about it when we are more at leisure. Good-morning, sir."

And Mr. Hastings bowed himself out.

By noon Tode was fairly launched upon his new life, and made such good
use of his eyes and ears that in some respects he knew more about the
business than did the new errand boy who had been there for a week. For
the first time in his life he was going to earn his living.

Mr. Hastings was correct in his opinion. Tode was sharp; yet he was
after all, not unlike a piece of soft putty, ready to be molded into
almost any shape, ready to take an impression from anything that he
chanced to touch. If the people who dined at that great hotel on the
Avenue during those following weeks could have known how the chance
words which they let drop, and in dropping forgot, were gathered up by
that round-eyed boy, how startled they would have been! There was one
memory which stood out sharply in Tode's life--it was of his mother's
death. The boy had never in his fifteen years of life heard but one
prayer, that was his mother's, it was for him: "O Lord, don't let Tode
ever drink a drop of rum." He had very vague ideas in regard to prayer,
very bewildering notions concerning the Being to whom this prayer was
addressed; but he knew what rum was--he had excellent reason to know;
and he knew that these words of his mother's had been terribly earnest
ones--they had burned themselves into his brain. He remembered his
mother as one who had given him what little care and kindness he had
ever received. Finally he had a sturdy, positive, emphatic will of his
own, which is not a bad thing to have if one takes proper care of it. So
without any sort of idea as to the right or wrong of the matter, with
perfect indifference as to whether this thing came under either head, he
h