for a
twelve-year-old news-boy?"

Bert blushed and explained:--

"Got up for me by a printer's boy I know. I had done some favors for
him, and so he made me a few cards. Handy to have sometimes, you know."

"Well, Herbert," said the old man, "I'm glad to make your acquaintance,
and I hope you'll come and see me. You'll find me in very humble
quarters; but you are not aristocratic, you say. Now won't you let me
pay for my dinner? I believe I have money enough. Let me see." And he
put his hand in his pocket.

Bert would not hear of such a thing; but walked up to the desk, and
settled the bill with the air of a person who did not regard a trifling
expense.

When he looked around again, the little old man was gone.

"Now mind; I'll go and see him the first chance I have," said Bert, as
he looked at the penciled strip of newspaper margin again before putting
it into his pocket.

He then went round to his miserable quarters, in the top of a cheap
lodging-house, and prepared himself at once to go and see his mother. He
could not afford to ride, and it was a long walk,--at least five miles
to the place where his mother was nursing.

On the following Monday, Bert, having a leisure hour, went to call on
his new acquaintance in Devonshire street.

Having climbed the two nights, he found the door of the back room at the
right ajar, and, looking in, saw Mr. Crooker at a desk, in the act of
receiving a roll of money from a well-dressed visitor.

Bert entered unnoticed, and waited till the money was counted and a
receipt signed. Then, as the visitor departed, Mr. Crooker noticed the
lad, offered him a chair, and then turned to place the money in the
safe.

[Illustration: "_He saw Mr. Crooker receiving a roll of money_."]

"So this is your place of business?" said Bert, glancing about the plain
office room. "What do you do here?"

"I buy real estate, sometimes--sell--rent--and so forth."

"Who for?" asked Bert.

"For myself," said the old gentleman, with a smile.

Bert started, perfectly aghast, at this situation. This, then, was the
man whom he had invited to dinner and treated so patronizingly the
preceding Thursday!

"I--I--I thought--you were a poor man!"

"I am a poor man," said Mr. Crooker, locking his safe. "Money doesn't
make a man rich. I've money enough. I own houses in the city. They give
me something to think of, and so keep me alive. I had truer riches once,
but I lost them long ago."

From the w