answered. "I really don't think I should
like to adopt another."

"I'm not in the market for adoption," said Ben, smiling. "I want to get
into some store to learn the business."

"Have you any particular fancy for the druggist's business?" asked the
apothecary.

"No, sir, I can't say that I have."

"I never took much, but enough to know that I don't like it."

"Then I am afraid you wouldn't do for experiment clerk."

"What's that?"

"Oh, it his duty to try all the medicines, to make sure there are no
wrong ingredients in them--poison, for instance."

"I am afraid I shouldn't like that," said Ben.

"You don't know till you've tried. Here's a pill now. Suppose you
take that, and tell me how you like it."

The druggist extended to Ben a nauseous-looking pill, nearly as large
as a bullet. He had made it extra large, for Ben's special case.

"No, I thank you," said Ben, with a contortion of the face; "I know I
wouldn't do for experiment clerk. Don't you need any other clerk?
Couldn't I learn to mix medicines?"

"Well, you see, there would be danger at first--to the customers, I
mean. You might poison somebody, and then I would be liable for
damages. If you will get somebody to sign a bond, forfeiting ten
thousand dollars in any such case, I might consider your application."

"I don't think I could find any such person," said Ben.

"Then I am afraid I can't employ you. You are quite sure you don't
want to be experiment clerk?"

"And swallow your medicines? I guess not. Good morning."

"Good morning. If you want any pills, you will know where to come."

"I would rather go where they make 'em smaller," said Ben.

Ben and the druggist both laughed, and the former left the shop.

"That's the second situation I have been offered today," soliloquized
our hero. "They were not very desirable, either one of them, to be
sure, but it shows there's an opening for me somewhere."

The next was a cigar store.

"I might as well go in," thought Ben.

A little hump-backed man was behind the counter.

"Want to hire a boy?" asked Ben.

"Are you the boy?"

"Yes."

"What can you do?"

"I am willing to do anything."

The hunchback grinned.

"Then perhaps I can give you a situation. Will you work for three
dollars a week?"

Ben reflected.

"That will do, with strict economy," he thought, "till the factory takes
me on again."

"I'll come for a few weeks, at that rate," he said.

"But perhaps