t it was too early to call upon the banker.

Mr. Fitzherbert Wittleworth did not go to the banker's office when
ordered to do so. He went to his mother's house, to tell her that Mr.
Checkynshaw had threatened to discharge him. He had a long talk with
her. She was a sensible woman, and reproved his self-conceit, and
insisted that he should make peace with the powerful man by a humble
apology.

"Mother, you may eat humble pie at the feet of Mr. Checkynshaw, if you
like; I shall not," replied Fitz, as he was familiarly called, though
the brief appellative always galled him, and the way to reach his heart
was to call him _Mr._ Wittleworth.

"If you get turned off, what will become of us? Your father isn't good
for anything, and what both of us can earn is hardly enough to keep us
from starving," answered the poor woman, whose spirit had long before
been broken by poverty, disappointment, and sorrow.

"I would rather starve than have the heel of that man on my neck. I
have done everything I could for the concern. I have worked early and
late, and kept everything up square in the private office; but there is
no more gratitude in that man than there is in a truck horse. He don't
even thank me for it."

"But he pays you wages; and that's enough," replied his more practical
mother.

"That is not enough, especially when he pays me but five dollars a
week. I am worth a thousand dollars a year, at least, to the concern.
Checkynshaw will find that out after he has discharged me," added Mr.
Wittleworth, pulling up his collar, as was his wont when his dignity
was damaged.

"Go back to him; tell him you are sorry for what you said, and ask him
to forgive you," persisted Mrs. Wittleworth. "This is no time for poor
people to be proud. The times are so hard that I made only a dollar
last week, and if you lose your place, we must go to the almshouse."

"What's the use of saying that, mother?" continued the son. "It seems
to me you take pride in talking about our poverty."

"It's nothing but the truth," added Mrs. Wittleworth, wiping the tears
from her pale, thin face, which was becoming paler and thinner every
day, for she toiled far into the night, making shirts at eight cents
apiece. "I have only fifty cents in money left to buy provisions for
the rest of the week."

"Folks will trust you," said Fitz, impatiently.

"I don't want them to trust me, if I am not to have the means of paying
them. It was wrong for you to pay six