style="font-size:15px;"> "I won't if I can help it, mother, though I don't believe anybody else would suspect it. I must take good care not to look into the looking-glass, or I might be under the impression that I was a street-boy instead of a gentleman."
"Clothes don't make the gentleman, Dan. I want you to behave and feel like a gentleman, even if your clothes are poor and patched."
"I understand you, mother, and I shall try to follow your advice. I have never done any mean thing yet that I can remember, and I don't intend to."
"I am sure of that, my dear boy."
"Don't be too sure of anything, mother. I have plenty of bad examples before me."
"But you won't be guided by them?"
"I'll try not."
"Did you succeed well in your sales to-day, Dan?"
"Pretty well. I made ninety-six cents."
"I wish I could earn as much," said Mrs. Mordaunt, sighing. "I can only earn twenty cents a day."
"You earn as much as I do, mother, but you don't get it. You see, there's a difference in earning and being paid. Old Gripp is a mean skinflint. I should like to force one of his twenty-cent vests down his miserly throat."
"Don't use such violent language, Dan. Perhaps he pays me all he can afford."
"Perhaps he does, but I wouldn't bet high on it. He is making a fortune out of those who sew for him. There are some men that have no conscience. I hope some time you will be free from him."
"I hope so, too, Dan, but I am thankful to earn something. I don't want all the burden of our maintenance to fall on you."
"Don't call it a burden, mother. There's nothing I enjoy so much as working for you. Why, it's fun!"
"It can't be fun on rainy, disagreeable days, Dan."
"It wouldn't be fun for you, mother, but you're not a boy."
"I am so sorry that you can't keep on with your education, Dan. You were getting on so well at school."
It was a thought that had often come to Dan, but he wouldn't own it, for he did not wish to add to his mother's sadness.
"Oh, well, mother," he said, "something may turn up for us, so we won't look down in the mouth."
"I have got my bundled work ready, Dan, if you can carry it round to Mr. Gripp's to-night."
"Yes, mother, I'll carry it. How many vests are there?"
"There are six. That amounts to a dollar and twenty cents. I hope he'll pay you to-night, for our rent comes due to-morrow."
"So it does!" ejaculated Dan, seriously. "I never thought of it. Shall we have enough to pay it? You've got my money, you know."
"We shall be a dollar short."
"Even if old Gripp pays for the vests?"
"Yes."
Dan whistled—a whistle of dismay and anxiety, for he well knew that the landlord was a hard man.
CHAPTER III.
GRIPP'S CLOTHING STORE
Nathan Gripp's clothing store was located about a quarter of a mile from the City Hall, on Chatham street. Not many customers from Fifth avenue owned him as their tailor, and he had no reputation up town. His prices were undeniably low, though his clothes were dear enough in the end.
His patrons were in general from the rural districts, or city residents of easy tastes and limited means.
The interior of the store was ill-lighted, and looked like a dark cavern. But nearly half the stock was displayed at the door, or on the sidewalk, Mr. Gripp himself, or his leading salesman, standing in the door-way with keen, black eyes, trying to select from the moving crowds possible customers.
On the whole Gripp was making money. He sold his clothes cheap, but they cost him little. He paid the lowest prices for work, and whenever told that his wages would not keep body and soul together, he simply remarked:
"That's nothing to me, my good woman. If you don't like the pay, leave the work for somebody else."
But unfortunately those who worked for Mr. Gripp could not afford to leave the work for somebody else. Half wages were better than none, and they patiently kept on wearing out their strength that Nathan might wax rich, and live in good style up town.
Mr. Gripp himself was standing in the door-way when Dan, with the bundle of vests under his arm, stopped in front of the store. Mr. Gripp was a little doubtful whether our hero wished to become a customer, but a glance at the bundle dispelled his uncertainty, and revealed the nature of his errand.
"I've brought home half a dozen vests," said Dan.
"Who from?" asked Gripp, abruptly, for he never lavished any of the suavity, which was a valuable part of his stock in trade, on his work people.
"Mrs. Mordaunt."
"Take them into the store. Here, Samuel, take the boy's bundle, and see if the work is well done."
It was on the tip of Dan's tongue to resent the doubt which these words implied, but he prudently remained silent.
The clerk, a callow youth, with long tow-colored locks, made sleek with bear's grease, stopped picking his teeth, and motioned to Dan to come forward.
"Here, young feller," he said, "hand over your bundle."
"There it is, young feller!" retorted Dan.
The clerk surveyed the boy with a look of disapproval in his fishy eyes.
"No impudence, young feller!" he said.
"Where's the impudence?" demanded Dan. "I don't see it."
"Didn't you call me a young feller?"
"You've called me one twice, but I ain't at all particular. I'd just as lief call you an old feller," said Dan, affably.
"Look here, young chap, I don't like your manners," said the clerk, with an irritating consciousness that he was getting the worst of the verbal encounter.
"I'm sorry for that," answered Dan, "because they're the best I've got."
"Did you make these vests yourself?" asked the salesman, with a feeble attempt at humor.
"Yes," was Dan's unexpected rejoinder. "That's the way I amuse my leisure hours."
"Humph!" muttered the tallow-faced young man, "I'll take a look at them."
He opened the bundle, and examined the vests with an evident desire to find something wrong.
He couldn't find any defect, but that didn't prevent his saying:
"They ain't over-well made."
"Well, they won't be over-well paid," retorted Dan. "So we're even."
"I don't know if we ought
