"Bully news."
"What do you mean?"
"Can't you guess?"
"No, I can't."
"Why, you old hayseed, this is pay-day."
Barry's face beamed. Naturally he looked forward with great pleasure to the first money he had ever earned. He voiced his feelings to Joe:
"The work here has been so pleasant that I actually lost count of the days. I never dreamt that I'd been in Washington for a month."
"Well," said the practical one, "you'll know all right when you go up to the cashier's office this morning."
The experienced boy led the novice to that part of the Capitol building where the pages received their checks. Barry had to sign the pay-roll and after that swore that he had rendered the service for which he was about to be paid. He was handed a nice, bright, crisp check drawn to the order of Barry Wynn against the Treasurer of the United States. He looked at it with ill-concealed curiosity and then gave a gasp of delight. The check was for sixty-eight dollars. He had worked a little less than a month, but the sight of the voucher for so much money gave him a sense of elation that he had never felt before.