"P'r'aps you'll get the money again, sometime."

"There isn't much chance of it," said Fosdick. "I'd sell out my
chances of that for five dollars."

"Maybe I'll buy you out sometime," said Dick. "Now, come round and
see what sort of a room I've got. I used to go to the theatre
evenings, when I had money; but now I'd rather go to bed early, and
have a good sleep."

"I don't care much about theatres," said Fosdick. "Father didn't use
to let me go very often. He said it wasn't good for boys."

"I like to go to the Old Bowery sometimes. They have tip-top plays
there. Can you read and write well?" he asked, as a sudden thought
came to him.

"Yes," said Fosdick. "Father always kept me at school when he was
alive, and I stood pretty well in my classes. I was expecting to
enter at the Free Academy* next year."

* Now the college of the city of New York.

"Then I'll tell you what," said Dick; "I'll make a bargain with you.
I can't read much more'n a pig; and my writin' looks like hens'
tracks. I don't want to grow up knowin' no more'n a four-year-old
boy. If you'll teach me readin' and writin' evenin's, you shall
sleep in my room every night. That'll be better'n door-steps or old
boxes, where I've slept many a time."

"Are you in earnest?" said Fosdick, his face lighting up hopefully.

"In course I am," said Dick. "It's fashionable for young gentlemen
to have private tootors to introduct 'em into the flower-beds of
literatoor and science, and why shouldn't I foller the fashion? You
shall be my perfessor; only you must promise not to be very hard if
my writin' looks like a rail-fence on a bender."

"I'll try not to be too severe," said Fosdick, laughing. "I shall be
thankful for such a chance to get a place to sleep. Have you got
anything to read out of?"

"No," said Dick. "My extensive and well-selected library was lost
overboard in a storm, when I was sailin' from the Sandwich Islands
to the desert of Sahara. But I'll buy a paper. That'll do me a
long time."

Accordingly Dick stopped at a paper-stand, and bought a copy of
a weekly paper, filled with the usual variety of reading
matter,--stories, sketches, poems, etc.

They soon arrived at Dick's lodging-house. Our hero, procuring a
lamp from the landlady, led the way into his apartment, which he
entered with the proud air of a proprietor.

"Well, how do you like it, Fosdick?" he asked, complacently.

The time was when Fosdick would have thought it untidy a