This present was all Mopsey needed to make him as happy as if he had been given an interest in the store. He began to think of such of his friends as he was quite positive would make bright and shining lights in the dramatic world, and was so generous as to offer to tell them all about the play as soon as he should have it mapped out in his mind.
When the partners went to bed that night, impressed with a sense of their growing importance, Johnny remarked to Ben, just as his eyes were closing in sleep,
“Now we’re reg’lar folks at last, ain’t we?”
And Ben quite agreed with him.
Chapter XVI.
IN CONCLUSION.
As Paul had agreed, he spent the next day with Ben and Johnny in their store; and surely no shopman ever felt more pride in selling goods than they did. Paul acted as clerk; and a very inquisitive one he was, too, for he insisted on looking everywhere, so that he should know just what kind of goods his friends had for sale.
Trade was very good; and when the money was counted for about the fifteenth time, and it was found that they had sold twenty dollars’ worth of goods, there was not one of the four who did not believe that in less than a year Ben and Johnny would be numbered among the merchant princes of the country.