"Well, Edward, I should not think it would be such a very disagreeable name to you, when your father, who is gone, always used it, and always in kindness, you told me; and it is the only name by which little Johnny can remember you. There are two things to be thought of in this matter," Ray continued, after a moment, finding Edward not disposed to speak: "one is, if you hope to do anything with this old companion of yours, you must be ready to take worse things from him than a quiet, inoffensive little name like that; he will learn your right name, perhaps, in time. And the other is--What is Bob Turner's right name, my friend?" Edward's face flushed, his lips quivered into a little smile, then he laughed outright. "It would be ridiculous to call _him_ Robert!" he said, still laughing. "Ray, here's my exercise, if you want it now." And Ray heard no more complaints about the offending little name. "Say, Tip, just go home with me to-night," Bob coaxed one evening, as Edward, having been detained late at the store, was leaving just as Bob was closing the shutters. "Mr. Ray's head is so bad you won't have any plaguy lessons to-night to hinder you. Every single fellow in the store but me is going to the theatre, and I am awful lonesome up there alone." "It is a wonder you are not going too," said Edward. "No, it ain't. I can keep a promise once in a while, I reckon. That Ray Minturn can do anything with a fellow, and I was fool enough to promise him that I wouldn't go. Come, go up home with me; do, that's a good fellow!" "No," said Edward decidedly, "I can't." "Now, Tip Lewis, I think you're real mean; you don't never come to see me no more than if I was in Guinea. You act as if you were ashamed of me, and I keep my word and behave myself, too; and you're a mean, chicken-hearted fellow, if you're ashamed to notice me now-a-days, just because you board in a big house and dress like a dandy." "Poh!" said Edward; "what nonsense that is! I'd look well being ashamed of any one that Minturn talked with. But, Bob, I can't go to-night, nor any other night just about this time; because I made a promise that I'd do something else, at exactly half-past eight, and that nothing in the world should hinder me if I could help it; and it can't be far from half-past eight now." Bob eyed him curiously. "Tip, you're the oddest fellow born, I do believe," he said at last "Is it lessons?" "No, it's nothing about lessons." "Couldn't I _help_ you to do it?" "Yes," said Edward, after a thoughtful silence; "you _could_ help me better than any one else, only you won't." "Well, now," Bob answered earnestly, "as sure as I'm alive, I will, if you'll tell me what it is; I'll help you this very night." "Do you promise?" asked Edward. "Yes, I do, out and out; and when I promise a thing through and through, why, _you_ know, Tip Lewis, that I do it."