“You don’t appear to have prospered,” rejoined Bernard.
“No. Is it not disgraceful that a man of my attainments should fill this ignoble position?” said Professor Puffer bitterly.
“Couldn’t you get anything better to do?”
“If I could you would not have found me traveling through the streets as a sandwich man. Up and down I walk through the livelong day, and how much do you think I receive for my degrading labors?”
“I suppose it is not much.”
“Fifty cents a day,” answered the professor bitterly.
“And you live on that?”
“Don’t live on it I starve.”
“But I don’t see how you became so reduced. Was not Cornelius McCracken, my old guardian, a friend of yours?”
“McCracken! The selfish beast! Don’t name him to me. I can’t bear to hear his name spoken.”