Bram looked down ruefully at his Sunday clothes.
“Ah felt a prince in these last evening,” he expostulated.
Christian laughed heartily.
“Well, they couldn’t beat you at the main things, Elshaw, at writing and spelling and calculating, eh?”
“No,” answered Bram complacently. “Ah could beat most of ’em there.”
As a matter of fact, Bram’s self-teaching, with the additional help of the night school in the winter, had so developed his natural capacity that he was as far ahead of his new companions intellectually as he was behind them in externals. Christian, who knew this, felt proud of his protégé.
“There are some more hints I want to give you,” said he, as he put his arm through that of his rough companion and walked with him up the street, with the good-natured familiarity which made him popular with everybody, but in the exercise of which he was very discriminating. “You will have to leave William Henry Street, or wherever it is you hang out, and take a room in a better neighborhood. And I will show you where you can go and dine. Look here,” he went on, stopping abruptly, “come up to me this evening, and we’ll have a talk over a pipe. You smoke, I suppose?”
“No, sir,” said Bram. “Ah don’t smoke. It’s too expensive. And Ah thank you kindly, but Ah’ve got a job out Hessel way this evening, and—”
Christian interrupted him with sudden interest.