it."

"What kind of store is it you are going into?"

"Dry goods. My uncle, Benjamin Streeter, mother's brother, keeps a dry
goods store on Washington street. It'll be jolly living in the city."

"I don't know," said Harry thoughtfully. "I think I like a village just
as well."

"What sort of a place is Granton, where you come from?"

"It's a farming town. There isn't any village at all."

"There isn't much going on here."

"There'll be more than in Granton. There's nothing to do there but to
work on a farm."

"I shouldn't like that myself; but the city's the best of all."

"Can you make more money in a store than working in a shoe shop?"

"Not so much at first, but after you've got learned there's better
chances. There's a clerk, that went from here ten years ago, that gets
fifty dollars a week."

"Does he?" asked Harry, to whose rustic inexperience this seemed like an
immense salary. "I didn't think any clerk ever got so much."

"They get it often if they are smart," said Robert.

Here he was wrong, however. Such cases are exceptional, and a city fry
goods clerk, considering his higher rate of expense, is no better off
than many country mechanics. But country boys are apt to form wrong
ideas on this subject, and are in too great haste to forsake good
country homes for long hours of toil behind a city counter, and a poor
home in a dingy, third-class city boarding house. It is only in the
wholesale houses, for the most part, that high salaries are paid,
and then, of course, only to those who have shown superior energy and
capacity. Of course some do achieve success and become rich; but of the
tens of thousand who come from the country to seek clerkships, but a
very small proportion rise above a small income.

"I shall have a start," Robert proceeded, "for I go into my uncle's
store. I am to board at his house, and get three dollars a week."

"That's what your father offers me," said Harry.

"Yes; you'll earn more after a while, and I can now; but I'd rather live
in the city. There's lots to see in the city--theaters, circuses, and
all kinds of amusements."

"You won't have much money to spend on theaters," said Harry, prudently.

"Not at first, but I'll get raised soon."

"I think I should try to save as much as I could."

"Out of three dollars a week?"

"Yes."

"What can you save out of that?"

"I expect to save half of it, perhaps more."

"I couldn't do that. I want a little fun."

"You