about two thousand dollars, and there is some
silver and odds and ends of things stored. I don't know what their value
might be--not very much, I fancy--and there were a lot of mining stocks
and that sort of thing which have no value so far as I can find out--no
available value, at any rate. There is also a tract of half-wild land
somewhere in Pennsylvania. There is coal on it, I believe, and some
timber; but Melig, my father's manager, told me that all the large
timber had been cut. So far as available value is concerned, the
property is about as much of an asset as the mining stock, with the
disadvantage that I have to pay taxes on it."

"H'm," said the general, tapping the desk with his eyeglasses.
"H'm--well, I should think if you lived very economically you would have
about enough to carry you through till you can be admitted, provided you
feel that the law is your vocation," he added, looking up.

"It was my father's idea," said John, "and if I were so situated that I
could go on with it, I would. But I am so doubtful with regard to my
aptitude that I don't feel as if I ought to use up what little capital I
have, and some years of time, on a doubtful experiment, and so I have
been looking for something else to do."

"Well," said the general, "if you were very much interested--that is, if
you were anxious to proceed with your studies--I should advise you to go
on, and at a pinch I should be willing to help you out; but, feeling as
you do, I hardly know what to advise. I was thinking of you," he went
on, "before you came in, and was intending to send for you to come in to
see me." He took a letter from his desk.

"I got this yesterday," he said. "It is from an old acquaintance of mine
by the name of Harum, who lives in Homeville, Freeland County. He is a
sort of a banker there, and has written me to recommend some one to take
the place of his manager or cashier whom he is sending away. It's rather
a queer move, I think, but then," said the general with a smile, "Harum
is a queer customer in some ways of his own. There is his letter. Read
it for yourself."

The letter stated that Mr. Harum had had some trouble with his cashier
and wished to replace him, and that he would prefer some one from out of
the village who wouldn't know every man, woman, and child in the whole
region, and "blab everything right and left." "I should want," wrote Mr.
Harum, "to have the young man know something about bookkeeping and so
on