style="font-size:15px;"> "How do you think my mother can cook, Tom?" asked Mark.
"She beats Beefsteak John all hollow. I just wish she'd open a eaten' house."
"I'll think about it, Tom," said Mrs. Mason smiling. "Would you be one of my regular customers?"
"I would if I had money enough."
It is hard to say which enjoyed the supper most. The day before Mrs. Mason had been anxious and apprehensive, but to-day, with a surplus fund of thirteen dollars, she felt in high spirits.
This may seem a small sum to many of our readers, but to the frugal little household it meant nearly two weeks' comfort.
The table was cleared, and Mark and Tom sat down to a game of checkers. They had just finished the first game when steps were heard on the stairs, and directly there was a knock at the door.
"Go to the door, Mark," said his mother.
Mark opened the door and found himself in the presence of a stout man, rather showily dressed, and wearing a white hat.
"Is this Mark Mason?" asked the visitor.
"Yes, sir."
The visitor took out a copy of the Evening Globe, and compared Mark with the picture.
"Yes, I see you are," he proceeded. "You are the telegraph boy that disarmed the dynamite crank in Mr. Rockwell's office."
"Yes, sir."
"Allow me to say, young man, I wouldn't have been in your shoes at that moment for ten thousand dollars."
"I wouldn't want to go through it again myself," smiled Mark.
All the while he was wondering why the stout man should have taken the trouble to come and see him.
"Perhaps you'll know me when I tell you that I'm Bunsby," said the stout visitor drawing himself up and inflating his chest with an air of importance.
"Of Bunsby's Dime Museum?" asked Mark.
"Exactly! You've hit it the first time. Most people have heard of me," he added complacently.
"Oh yes, sir, I've heard of you often. So have you, Tom?"
"Yes," answered Tom, fixing his eyes on Mr. Bunsby with awe-struck deference, "I've been to de museum often."
"Mr. Bunsby," said Mark gravely, "this is my particular friend, Tom Trotter."
"Glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Trotter," said Mr. Bunsby, offering his hand.
Tom took it shyly, and felt that it was indeed a proud moment for him. To be called Mr. Trotter by the great Bunsby, and to have his hand shaken into the bargain, put him on a pinnacle of greatness which he had never hoped to reach.
"Won't you walk in, Mr. Bunsby? This is my mother, Mrs. Mason, and this is my sister Edith."
"Glad to meet you, ladies both! I congratulate you, Mrs. Mason, on having so distinguished a son."
"He is a good boy, Mr. Bunsby, whether he is distinguished or not."
"I have no doubt of it. In fact I am sure of it. You already know that I keep a dime museum, where, if I do say it myself, may be found an unrivaled collection of curiosities gathered from the four quarters of the globe, and where may be witnessed the most refined and recherché entertainments, which delight daily the élite of New York and the surrounding cities."
"Yes, sir," assented Mrs. Mason, rather puzzled to guess what all this had to do with her.
"I have come here to offer your son an engagement of four weeks at twenty-five dollars a week, and the privilege of selling his photographs, with all the profits it may bring."
"But what am I to do?" asked Mark.
"Merely to sit on the platform with the other curiosities."
"But I am not a curiosity."
"I beg your pardon, my dear boy, but everybody will want to see the heroic boy who foiled a dynamite fiend and saved the life of a banker."
Somehow this proposal was very repugnant to Mark.
"Thank you, Mr. Bunsby," he said, "but I should not like to earn money in that way."
"I might say thirty dollars a week," continued Mr. Bunsby. "Come, let us strike up a bargain."
"It isn't the money. Twenty-five dollars a week is more than I could earn in any other way, but I shouldn't like to have people staring at me."
"My dear boy, you are not practical."
"I quite agree with Mark," said Mrs. Mason. "I would not wish him to become a public spectacle."
CHAPTER VIII
A SCENE IN MRS. MACK'S ROOM
Fifteen minutes before a stout, ill-dressed man of perhaps forty years of age knocked at the door of Mrs. Mack's room.
"Come in!" called the old lady in quavering accents.
The visitor opened the door and entered.
"Who are you?" asked the old lady in alarm.
"Don't you know me, Aunt Jane?" replied the intruder. "I'm Jack Minton, your nephew."
"I don't want to see you – go away!" cried Mrs. Mack.
"That's a pretty way to receive your own sister's son, whom you haven't seen for five years."
"I haven't seen you because you've been in jail," retorted his aunt in a shrill voice.
"Yes, I was took for another man," said Jack. "He stole and laid it off on to me."
"I don't care how it was, but I don't want to see you. Go away!"
"Look here, Aunt Jane, you're treating me awful mean. I'm your own orphan nephew, and you ought to make much of me."
"An orphan – yes. You hurried your poor mother to the grave by your bad conduct," said Mrs. Mack with some emotion. "You won't find me so soft as she was."
"Soft? No, you're as hard as flint, but all the same you're my aunt, and you're rich, while I haven't a dollar to bless myself with."
"Rich! Me rich!" repeated the old lady shrilly. "You see how I live. Does it look as if I was rich?"
"Oh, you can't humbug me that way. You could live better if you wanted to."
"I'm poor – miserably poor!" returned the old woman.
"I'd like to be as poor as you are!" said Jack Minton grimly. "You're a miser, that's all there is about it. You half starve yourself and live without fire, when you might be comfortable, and all to save money. You're a fool! Do you know where all your money will go when you're dead?"
"There won't be any left."
"Won't there? I'll take the risk of that, for I shall be your heir. It'll all go to me!" said Jack, chuckling.
