never pay me back."

"Say no, then."

"I will. Luke will be mad, but I can't help it."

So both Mr. Anderson and Harry wrote declining to lend. The latter,
in return, received a letter from Luke, denouncing him as a "mean,
miserly hunks;" but even this did not cause him to regret his
decision.

CHAPTER XXXI.

ONE STEP UPWARD.

In real life the incidents that call for notice do not occur daily.
Months and years pass, sometimes, where the course of life is quiet
and uneventful. So it was with Harry Walton. He went to his daily
work with unfailing regularity, devoted a large part of his leisure
to reading and study, or writing sketches for the Boston papers, and
found himself growing steadily wiser and better informed. His
account in the savings-bank grew slowly, but steadily; and on his
nineteenth birthday, when we propose to look in upon him again, he
was worth five hundred dollars.

Some of my readers who are favored by fortune may regard this as a
small sum. It is small in itself, but it was not small for a youth
in Harry's position to have saved from his small earnings. But of
greater value than the sum itself was the habit of self-denial and
saving which our hero had formed. He had started in the right way,
and made a beginning which was likely to lead to prosperity in the
end. It had not been altogether easy to save this sum. Harry's
income had always been small, and he might, without incurring the
charge of excessive extravagance, have spent the whole. He had
denied himself on many occasions, where most boys of his age would
have yielded to the temptation of spending money for pleasure or
personal gratification; but he had been rewarded by the thought that
he was getting on in the world.

"This is my birthday, Mr. Ferguson," he said, as he entered the
printing-office on that particular morning.

"Is it?" asked Ferguson, looking up from his case with interest.
"How venerable are you, may I ask?"

"I don't feel very venerable as yet," said Harry, with a smile. "I
am nineteen."

"You were sixteen when you entered the office."

"As printer's devil--yes."

"You have learned the business pretty thoroughly. You are as good a
workman as I now, though I am fifteen years older."

"You are too modest, Mr. Ferguson."

"No, it is quite true. You are as rapid and accurate as I am, and
you ought to receive as high pay."

"That will come in time. You know I make something by writing for