“I am in hopes that we will do even better as cold weather comes on,” returned Andy. “Folks seem to buy more then—I don’t know why. And besides, after stopping at Mauch Chunk, we will only go to large places, for I think it will pay to skip the smaller ones.”
“I don’t know but what you are right. I know one thing that I am going to do when I get to Mauch Chunk—that is, if business continues good.”
“And what is that?”
“I am going to buy a post-office order and send Miss Bartlett the money she so kindly loaned me. Won’t she be surprised to get it back so soon?”
“No doubt of it, Matt. It was very kind of her to loan it to you. I suppose you are going to pay her the interest——”
“For the full year,” finished the boy. “And at Christmas, if I can do it, I’m going to make her 241 some sort of a nice present. She is the only friend I had left in New York.”
“A very nice young lady,” returned Andy, and then he went on, with a short laugh: “I wonder what old Caleb Gulligan would say if he knew of our prosperity?”
“And I wonder what Mr. Randolph Fenton would say if he knew how I was doing? I hope when I write to Miss Bartlett that she lets him know,” went on Matt. “I suppose he thought that after he discharged me I would go to the dogs.”
“Yes, men like him very often imagine the world cannot possibly get along without them. I reckon you are glad that you are no longer in his employ.”
“Glad isn’t a strong enough word, Andy. It makes me shudder to look back at the times I spent in his offices, being bossed around and scolded from morning to night.”