“Yes, yes.” “How old is he?” “James must be nigh upon thirty,” answered Jerry, after a little reflection. “You won’t hire too expensive a room, Paul?” he added. “You know we are poor, very poor!” “Not unless I am willing to pay the extra cost myself.” “Don’t do that! Give me the extra money, Paul,” said Jerry, with eager cupidity. “I--I find it hard to get along with two dollars and a half a week.” “You forget, Jerry,” said Paul, coldly, “that I must have my meals. I can’t live without eating.” “You eat too much, Paul, I’ve long thought so. It’s hurtful to eat too much. It’s--it’s bad for the health.” “I’ll take the risk,” said Paul, with a short laugh. “I am not afraid of dying of gout, Jerry, with my present bill of fare.” “If you wouldn’t mind my going out a few hours every day, and asking kind gentlemen to help me, Paul, we--we could get along better.” “I won’t hear of it, Jerry,” said Paul, sternly. “If I hear of your going out to beg I will leave you and go off and live by myself. Then there will be no two dollars and a half coming to you every week.” “No, no, don’t leave me, Paul,” said Jerry, thoroughly alarmed by this threat. “I won’t go out if you don’t want me to, though it’s very, very foolish to stay in, when there are so many kind gentlemen and ladies ready to give money to old Jerry.” “Besides,” added Paul, “if you go out and stand in the street, your son will sooner or later find you out, and make trouble for you.” “So he will, so he will,” chimed in the miser, with the old look of alarm on his face. “You are right, Paul, you are right. I must put it off. I--I wish he would go away somewhere--to--to California, or some place a great way off.” Paul saw that he had produced the effect he intended upon the old man’s mind, and went out at once to look for a new room. He finally found one some half mile farther up town, in Ludlow Street--a little below Grand. The room was better furnished than the one in which he and Jerry had lived for some years. There was a cheap carpet on the floor, a bed in one corner, and a shabby but comfortable lounge, on which Paul himself proposed to sleep. The rent was two dollars a month more than they had been accustomed to pay, but Paul concluded to say nothing of this to the old man, but quietly to pay it out of his own pocket. It would be but fifty cents a week, and he thought he could make that extra sum in some way. He was beginning to be more fastidious about his accommodations, now that he had seen how people lived uptown. In fact, Paul was becoming ambitious. It was a very proper ambition, too. He had lived long enough in a squalid, miserable room, and now he meant to be better provided for. “I am getting older,” he said to himself. “I ought to earn more money. I am sure I can somehow. I will keep my eyes open and see what I can find.”