“It is true that you are engaged as private tutor to my friend, Walter. You’ll find him a splendid fellow, but I don’t know if the pay is sufficient,” continued Hector, gravely.
“I am willing to take less pay than I get here,” said the usher, “for the sake of getting away.”
“How much do you receive here?”
“Twenty dollar a month and board. I might, perhaps, get along on a little less,” he added doubtfully.
“You won’t have to, Mr. Crabb. You are offered sixty dollars a month and a home.”
“You are not in earnest, Roscoe?” asked the usher, who could not believe in his good fortune.
“I will read you the letter, Mr. Crabb.”
When it was read the usher looked radiant. “Roscoe,” he said, “you come to me like an angel from heaven. Just now I was sad and depressed; now it seems to me that the whole future is radiant. Sixty dollars a month! Why, it will make me a rich man.”
“Mr. Crabb,” said Hector, with a lurking spirit of fun, “can you really make up your mind to leave Smith Institute, and its kind and benevolent principal?”
“I don’t think any prisoner ever welcomed his release with deeper thankfulness,” said the usher. “To be in the employ of a man whom you despise, yet to feel yourself a helpless and hopeless dependent on him is, I assure you, Roscoe, a position by no means to be envied. For two years that has been my lot.”