"I can hardly refuse your request now, Rupert. Tell your friend—what's his name?"
"Henry Benton."
"Tell Mr. Benton to call at our store early next Monday morning and inquire for me. Give him a letter, so that I may know he is the right party. We are not taking on any salesmen, but one in the dress department is about to leave us and enter the employment of a firm in Chicago. I will put your friend in his place at a salary of twelve dollars a week."
"I can't tell you how much I thank you," said Rupert, gratefully. "You will bring happiness to a deserving family, and I don't think you will have occasion to regret it."
The dinner was an excellent one, and was enjoyed by the small company who partook of it.
"I must tell you, Rupert," said Sylvester, "that I have peculiar reasons for enjoying my twenty-fifth birthday, even if I have, as Cousin John expresses it, lived a quarter of a century. An old uncle left me fifty thousand dollars some years ago, directing that it should pass into my possession at the age of twenty-five."
"I congratulate you, Mr. Sylvester. I am sure you will make good use of it."
"I am not so sure of that, but I hope so. I have begun to make use of it already. You shake your head, Cousin John, but I don't think you will disapprove my expenditure. I have invested seventy-five dollars in a gold watch for Rupert, and thirty-five more in a gold chain."
He drew from his pocket a watch and chain which he handed to the astonished bell-boy.
"I don't know what to say, Mr. Sylvester," said Rupert, gratefully.