"
"I am paid just as well as I was when I was
in the factory."
"But you are learning nothing."
"You are going to teach me bookkeeping."
"Even that is not altogether a desirable
business. A good bookkeeper can never expect to
be in business for himself. He must be content
with a salary all his life."
"You have done pretty well, uncle."
"But there is no chance of my becoming
a rich man. I have to work hard for my
money. And I haven't been able to lay up
much money yet. That reminds me? Leonard,
I must impress upon you the fact that you
have your own way to make. I have procured
you a place, and I provide you a home----"
"You take my wages," said Leonard, bluntly.
"A part of them, but on the whole, you are
not self-supporting. You must look ahead,
Leonard, and consider the future. When you are
a young man you will want to earn an adequate income."
"Of course, I shall, uncle, but there is one
other course."
"What is that?"
"I may marry an heiress," suggested Leonard, smiling.
The bookkeeper winced.
"I thought I was marrying an heiress when
I married your aunt," he said, "but within
six months of our wedding day, her father
made a bad failure, and actually had the
assurance to ask me to give him a home under
my roof."
"Did you do it?"
"No; I told him it would not be convenient."
"What became of him?"
"He got a small clerkship at ten dollars a
week in the counting room of a mercantile
friend, and filled it till one day last October,
when he dropped dead of apoplexy.
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