“Are your feet clean?” she asked suspiciously.
“I wiped them carefully on the mat.”
“I don’t believe you half did. I never saw a boy yet with clean feet. Wait here, and I’ll tell the doctor.”
“Ah, good evening, my lad,” exclaimed the aged physician, as, with his spectacles half-way down on his nose, and holding a book in each hand, he came out to greet Tom. “You are from the printer’s, aren’t you? Have you the proofs of my new book on ‘The Influence of Environment in Nervous Diseases’?”
“No, sir. I’m not from the printer’s,” said Tom. “I came about the ten dollars, for Mr. Townsend.”
“Oh, yes, to be sure. How stupid of me. I wonder where my pocketbook is?”
“Didn’t you find it?”
“Find it? Did I lose it?”
“Yes. Don’t you remember me telephoning about it for you, when you were in the store?”
“Oh, yes, to be sure. Now I know who you are. Dear, dear, I am getting to have a bad memory, I’m afraid!”