He replaced the change in his pocket.
“Ah,” he sighed––“them were the happy days.”
“If I remember correctly,” continued Jonas Barton thoughtfully, “twelve dollars and sixty-three cents was fully as much as your father possessed when he asked your mother to marry him. That was just after he lost his ship off Hatteras.”
“Yes, them were the happy days,” nodded Don. “But, at that, Dad had his nerve with him.”
“He did,” answered Barton. “He had his nerve with him always.”
CHAPTER II
IT BECOMES NECESSARY TO EAT
In spite of the continued efforts of idealists to belittle it, there is scarcely a fact of human experience capable of more universal substantiation than that in order to live it is necessary to eat. The corollary is equally true: in order to eat it is necessary to pay.