The clerk glanced at him a little sharply, and then handed out a sample bunch of a poor quality.
Pat did not offer to touch them.
"They'll not do," he said. "Have you no better ones? I want to see the best ones you've got."
"What's the matter with these?" asked the clerk quickly.
"And how can I tell what's the matter with 'em? They're not the kind for General Brady, and that you know as well as I."
At mention of the General's name the clerk pricked up his ears. It would be greatly to his credit if, through him, their house should catch General Brady's trade. He became deferential at once. But he might as well have spared his pains. No one, with Pat as buyer, would be able to catch or to keep the General's trade. Whoever offered the best for the money would sell to him.
The boy had the same experience in every store he entered, as he went about picking up one article here and another there till all were checked off his list.
"There's more'n me thinks the General's a fine man," he thought as he went home. "There didn't nobody care about sellin' to me, but they was all after the General's trade, so they was. And now I must hurry, for my work's a-waitin' for me, and the puddin' to be learnin' besides. Would I be goin' back to live off my mother now, and her a-washin' to keep me? Indeed and I wouldn't. The meanest thing a boy can be doin', I believe, is to be lettin' his mother keep him if he can get a bit of work of any sort."
With his mother's shrewd counsel backing him up, and with the General constantly before him to be admired and imitated, Pat was developing a manly spirit. When he went to live with Mrs. Brady, he had offered his mother the dollar a week he was to receive as wages.
"Sure and I'll not be takin' it, Pat," said the little woman decidedly.