“Yes. The shoe business is carried on here considerably. Are you still working for Mr. Leavitt?”
“No; I have left him.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m traveling with Professor Henderson.”
“What, the magician?”
“Yes.”
“And is that what brought you to Centreville?” asked Luke, quickly.
“Yes.”
“I thought,” answered Luke, evasively, “that you might be looking for work in some of the shoeshops here.”
“Is there any chance, do you think?”
“No, I don’t think there is,” said Luke, hastily.
“Then I shall probably stay with the professor for the present.”
“What do you do?”
“Take tickets at the door and help him before- hand with his apparatus.”
“You’ll let me in free, to-night, won’t you?”
“That isn’t for me to decide. It isn’t my entertainment.”
“What a fool I was to pay him that five dollars!” thought Luke, regretfully. “If I hadn’t been such a simpleton, I should have found out what brought him here, before throwing away nearly all I had.”
This was the view Luke took of paying his debts. He regarded it as money thrown away. Apparently, a good many young men are of a similar opinion. This was not, however, according to Harry’s code, and was never likely to be. He believed in honesty and integrity. If he hadn’t I should feel far less confidence in his ultimate success.
“I think I must leave you,” said Harry, rising.
“The professor may need me.”
“Does it pay as much as Leavitt did?”
“Rather more.”
“I wouldn’t mind trying it myself. Do you handle all the money?”
“I take the money at the door.”
“I suppose you might keep back a dollar or so every night, and he’d never know the difference.”
“I don’t know. I never thought about that,” said Harry, dryly.
“Oh, I remember, you’re one of the pious boys,” sneered Luke.
“I’m too pious to take money that doesn’t belong to me, if that’s what you mean,” said Harry.
“Do you mean that for me?” Luke demanded, angrily.
“Mean what for you?”
“That about keeping other people’s money,” blustered Luke.
“I wasn’t talking about you at all. I was talking about myself.”
“I don’t believe in people that set themselves up to be so much better than anybody else.”
“Do you mean that for me?” asked Harry, smiling.
“Yes, I do. What are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing,” said Harry, quietly, “except to deny that I make any such claims. Shall you come around to the hall to-night?”
“Perhaps so.”
“Then I shall see you. I must be going now.”
He went out, leaving Luke vainly deploring the loss of the five dollars which he had so foolishly squandered in paying his debt.
CHAPTER XXII.
IN THE PRINTING OFFICE.
“Harry,” said the professor after breakfast the next morning, “I find we must get some more bills printed. You may go around to the office of the Centreville Gazette and ask them how soon they can print me a hundred large bills and a thousand small ones.”
“All right, sir. Suppose they can’t have them done by the time we are ready to start?”
“They can send them to me by express to the next place.”
“Very well, sir.”
Harry was rather glad to do this errand. He had never been into a printing office; but he had a great curiosity to do so ever since he had read the “Life of Benjamin Franklin.” If there was any one in whose steps he thought he should like to follow it was Franklin, and Franklin was a printer.
He had no difficulty in finding the office. It was in the second story of a building just at the junction of two roads near the center of the town. He ascended a staircase and saw on the door, at the head of the stairs:
“CENTREVILLE GAZETTE.”
He opened the door and entered. He saw a large room, containing a press at one end, while two young men, with paper caps on their heads, were standing in their shirt sleeves at upright cases, setting type. On one side there was a very small office partitioned off. Within, a man was seen seated at a desk, with a pile of exchange papers on the floor, writing busily. This was Mr. Jotham Anderson, publisher and editor of the Gazette, and foreman of the printing office.