After the first month of experiment, and steadily following down the years, Peter Potter paid him monthly a fair share of the proceeds of the business which prospered remarkably with Jason’s assistance. Peter never objected when he found one of Jason’s school books lying on his account desk or Jason deep in the book when he had the store cleaned and arranged to such a state that he felt he might use a few minutes for himself. Both knew that Jason’s spare time was secured through deliberate planning of his work. Peter never knew at what hour Jason arose, but he did know that each morning when he stood in front of his store, he would find a fresh and attractive display of provisions and a new and luring sign containing some quirk or jest that caught people’s attention and turned their footsteps into his door. Among this daily increasing fleet of footsteps attracted by the window displays, the catchy signs, and the quick and efficient services of Jason aided by a rejuvenated Peter, who had taken a reef in his trousers and consented to wear a washable coat, there came once a week the daughter of opulence. Usually she arrived with a slip in her hand, ostensibly to order groceries for her mother. At times she walked in frankly. It was at Peter’s suggestion that her endeavours for Jason were made under cover of a screened space where the desk bearing Peter’s ledgers and account books was ranged. Its bill-papered grating gave them privacy while Mahala each week marked in Jason’s books the extent to which the lessons in his class had progressed. Then she remained a few minutes to give him a hint as to how a difficult equation worked out in algebra; to help him over a knotty place in physical geography or astronomy, where the class had used authorities other than their school books and had kept notes. These she loaned him, and she took pains as she set them down in school to use great precision and fully elaborate points she well understood, that they might be clear to Jason.