o skip the smaller ones."

"I don't know but what you are right. I know one thing that I am going
to do when I get to Mauch Chunk--that is, if business continues
good."

"And what is that?"

"I am going to buy a post-office order and send Miss Bartlett the
money she so kindly loaned me. Won't she be surprised to get it back
so soon?"

"No doubt of it, Matt. It was very kind of her to loan it to you. I
suppose you are going to pay her the interest----"

"For the full year," finished the boy. "And at Christmas, if I can do
it, I'm going to make her some sort of a nice present. She is the
only friend I had left in New York."

"A very nice young lady," returned Andy, and then he went on, with a
short laugh: "I wonder what old Caleb Gulligan would say if he knew of
our prosperity?"

"And I wonder what Mr. Randolph Fenton would say if he knew how I was
doing? I hope when I write to Miss Bartlett that she lets him know,"
went on Matt. "I suppose he thought that after he discharged me I
would go to the dogs."

"Yes, men like him very often imagine the world cannot possibly get
along without them. I reckon you are glad that you are no longer in
his employ."

"Glad isn't a strong enough word, Andy. It makes me shudder to look
back at the times I spent in his offices, being bossed around and
scolded from morning to night."

"I think traveling around has done us both a deal of good, Matt. I
feel stronger than I have in years, and you look the picture of
health, barring those bruises you received from Barberry and his
companions."

"Oh, I feel fine! Outdoor life always did agree with me. When I was in
Fenton's offices I felt very much like a prisoner in a jail. I
wouldn't go back to that life again for the world!"

Thus the talk ran on, from one subject to another. Andy had given his
young partner the full particulars of his own roving life, and in
return Matt had related everything concerning himself, and the two
felt as if they had known each other for years; in fact, as Matt once
stated later on, they were more like brothers than mere partners in
business.

Andy was deeply interested in the fact of Mr. Lincoln's disappearance,
and he wondered nearly as much as did Matt himself if the unfortunate
man would ever turn up again.

As for the boy, he could not bring himself to believe that his parent
was dead, and although he rarely mentioned his father's name, he was
constantly on the watch for him, and often when