“I do mean you. Have you a father or mother?”
“No, sir; unhappily not.”
“Have you no one belonging to you, then?” asked the young man with a look of sympathy.
“No, sir, I can’t say that I have. I live with an old man who is not related to me. It is better than being alone.”
“Doesn’t he rely upon you to contribute to his support?”
“He does, but he need not. He is a miser and has money deposited in the Bowery Savings Bank, and elsewhere, I expect. I think he has enough to carry him through to the end of his life.”
“If he is a miser you probably don’t live very luxuriously.”
“We live in a poor room in an east side tenement house, sir,” answered Paul.
“You are not contented with that, I take it.”