"I guess you mean the one about the shoemaker sticking to his last," said Dick, with a smile.
"Well, last or first, it don't make much difference, only I'm going to stick to daily papers after this. Crimps! T'ink what a lot of fun we could have had with de chink we lost!"
"Well, we'll make it up, somehow," said Dick. "Don't worry over it."
But Jimmy could not help it, and it was some time before he got over the financial disaster which came to him and his partner. However, it was, as Dick said, a good lesson to them, not to venture into a field of which they knew nothing.
Jimmy had, under Dick's guidance, resumed his studies at night, and Frank Merton came in occasionally. The boys began to plan on attending night school as soon as the term opened, which would be in a few weeks.
"Then you'll have to study harder than you do now, Jimmy," said Dick. "Those teachers will not be as easy on you as I am."
"Well, I guess I can stand it," answered Jimmy, with a little sigh. "As long as I've got to read and write and do arithmetic, I might as well learn to do it good."
One evening, when Jimmy had not come in, as he had undertaken to dispose of a lot of late extras, Dick sat alone in the room. He was vainly puzzling over his queer case, and wondering if he would ever learn who he was, and who his folks were, if he had any. He tried and tried again to penetrate back into the past, but he had to stop at a certain place. And that was a confused scene, where he found himself in a crowd, felt a stunning blow on the head and then awoke in the box with Jimmy.
"I'm afraid that's as near it as I ever shall get," thought poor Dick. "If only I could see something, or somebody, or hear something said that would recall the past. But I can't."
A little later some one knocked on the door. Thinking it was Mr. Snowden, who used to call on the permanent lodgers in the house occasionally, Dick called out an invitation to enter.