“True, but I never dreamed when I stood behind the counter in Boston, and waited on fashionable ladies, that I should ever come to this.”
“He seems more ashamed of wheeling vegetables than of stealing,” thought Herbert, and he was correct.
“How do you happen to be in this business, Eben?” he asked, with some curiosity.
“I must do it or starve. I was cheated out of my money soon after I came here, and didn't know where to turn.”
Eben did not explain that he lost his money in a gambling house. He might have been cheated out of it, but it was his own fault, for venturing into competition with older and more experienced knaves than himself.
“I went for thirty-six hours without food,” continued Eben, “when I fell in with a man who kept a vegetable store, and he offered to employ me. I have been with him ever since.”
“You were fortunate to find employment,” said Herbert.
“Fortunate!” repeated Eben, in a tragic tone. “How much wages do you think I get?”
“I can't guess.”
“Five dollars a week, and have to find myself,” answered Eben, mournfully. “What would my fashionable friends in Boston say if they could see me?”