“Inside as well as outside,” added Paul, with a smile. “That’s where you are right, my boy. Evidently your head is level. You say you are a telegraph boy?” “Yes sir.” “How do you like it?” “Fairly well--for the present.” “You wouldn’t like to follow it permanently, eh?” “No, sir; by the time I got to be fifty or sixty, I might like to change to something else.” “You might be able to retire on a fortune.” “It would be a very small one, judging from my weekly pay.” “I think myself, unless you are wedded to the business, you might pass your time more profitably. What do you think you would like?” “To enter some business house where I could rise step by step as I deserved it,” answered Paul, with animation. “You have the right idea. Now let me tell you why I inquire. In the fall my father will establish a branch house here, with myself at the head of it. I don’t mind telling you that if I had lost the money I have with me, it is doubtful whether he would have trusted me so far. Now, thanks to your prompt assistance, I have been spared the natural result of my folly, and my father will never know the risk I have run. So you see that you have rendered me an important service.” “I am sincerely glad of it, sir.” “I mean that you shall be, and on your account. If I establish myself here, I shall want a young assistant on whose intelligence and fidelity I can rely. Do you know any such person?” “I hope you mean me,” said Paul eagerly. “It is just the opening I have been looking for, for a long time.” “I do mean you. Have you a father or mother?” “No, sir; unhappily not.” “Have you no one belonging to you, then?” asked the young man with a look of sympathy. “No, sir, I can’t say that I have. I live with an old man who is not related to me. It is better than being alone.” “Doesn’t he rely upon you to contribute to his support?” “He does, but he need not. He is a miser and has money deposited in the Bowery Savings Bank, and elsewhere, I expect. I think he has enough to carry him through to the end of his life.” “If he is a miser you probably don’t live very luxuriously.” “We live in a poor room in an east side tenement house, sir,” answered Paul. “You are not contented with that, I take it.” “No, sir; when I compare it with the place where I spent this evening, it makes me mortified and ashamed.” “You were at a party, you said?” “Yes, sir, in a fine brown stone mansion up town.” “Isn’t it a little unusual for a telegraph boy living in a tenement house to be invited to a fashionable party?” “Yes, sir, but these are very kind friends of mine, who overlook my poor social position, and notice me as much as if I lived in a house as good as their own.”