"I have no idea. He has evidently been saving up money to help him out of town. Sometime we may get upon his track, and compel him to pay up."
"That won't do me much good," said Harry, despondently. And then he told the tailor why he wanted the money. "Now," he concluded, "I shan't be able to have the money ready in time."
"You'll have most of it ready, won't you?"
"I think I will."
"I would lend you the money myself," said the tailor, "but I've got a heavy payment to meet and some of my customers are slow pay, though I have not many as bad as Luke Harrison."
"Thank you, Mr. Merrill," said Harry. "I am as much obliged to you as if you could lend the money."
But it is said that misfortunes never come singly. The very next day Mr. Leavitt received a message from the wholesale dealer to whom he sold his shoes, that the market was glutted and sales slow.
"I shall not want any more goods for a month or two," the letter concluded. "I will let you know, when I more."
Mr. Leavitt read this letter aloud in the shop.
"So it seems we are to have a vacation," he said. "That's the worst of the shoe trade. It isn't steady. When it's good everybody rushes into it, and the market soon gets overstocked. Then there's no work for weeks."