"I can't afford it," said Sam.
"Oh, it won't be much. If you beat me I'll have to pay."
Sam yielded, and they commenced playing, Both being novices, the game occupied an hour, and Sam, who was beaten, found to his dismay that he had to pay sixty cents.
"It don't seem more'n fifteen minutes," he said to himself. "It's awful dear."
"So it is," said his companion; "but if you had beaten me you would have got off for nothing."
"I don't see how I'm goin' to live on five dollars a week," thought Sam, uncomfortably, "I wonder when they'll raise me."
CHAPTER VI. — SAM'S LUCK.
When towns and cities find their income insufficient to meet their expenditures, they raise money by selling bonds. Sam would gladly have resorted to this device, or any other likely to replenish his empty treasury; but his credit was not good. He felt rather bashful about applying to his roommate for money, being already his debtor, and, in his emergency, thought of the senior clerk, William Budd.