CHAPTER XXVII.
MR. TRIPP IS DISAPPOINTED.
Silas Tripp returned home full of the news he had heard in New York.
“Just as I thought,” he said to himself, “Chester Rand ought never to have left Wyncombe. He ain’t calc’lated to succeed in the city. He’d orter have stayed in my store. In two or three years he might have been earnin’ four or five dollars a week, and he could have boarded at home. It costs a sight to live in the city. I ain’t sure that I could afford it myself.”
Mr. Tripp decided to offer Chester his old place at two dollars and a half a week. Abel Wood was again in his employ, but he didn’t like him as well as Chester.
The latter he had always found reliable, while Abel was rather apt to forget what Silas told him. Once he had stopped in the street and played ball, losing ten or fifteen minutes in that way. Mr. Tripp was obliged to confess that he never had a more satisfactory boy than Chester.
The store closed at nine, and Silas, instead of going into the house, walked over to Mrs. Rand’s cottage.
She was rather surprised when she saw who her visitor was.
“Good-evening, Mr. Tripp,” she said, politely. “Won’t you come in?”
“Thank you, widder. It’s rather late to call, but I thought you might like to hear about York, seein’ Chester is there.”