"You won't forget to send me the paper?"
"No, I'll remember it. Come in and have an ice-cream. You can return the compliment when you've drawn a prize."
"All right! Is a thousand dollars the highest prize?"
"No, there are some of two, three, and five thousand. Then there are five-hundred-dollar prizes, and so along to five dollars. Five hundred wouldn't be so bad, eh?"
"No, I should feel satisfied with that. I would come up to New York, and spend a week."
"If you do, just step in upon me, and I'll show you round. I know the ropes."
"I wish I could," said Joshua, enviously. "This is an awfully stupid place. I tried to get leave to go to the city last fall, but the old man wouldn't let me. He wasn't willing to spend the money."
I hope none of my readers will so admire the character of Joshua Drummond as to imitate him in the disrespectful manner in which he speaks of his father. Yet I am aware that many boys and young men, who are not without respect and affection for their parents, have fallen into the very discreditable way of referring to them as "the old man" or "the old woman." They may be sure that such a habit will prejudice against them all persons of right feeling.
Joshua and Sam went into the ice-cream saloon, which was kept, during the summer only, in a small candy store, by a maiden lady who eked out a scanty income by such limited patronage as the village could afford. Joshua plied his companion with further questions, to all of which he readily replied, though it is doubtful whether all the answers were quite correct. But Sam, having been in the city a few months, wished to be thought to have a very extensive acquaintance with it, and was unwilling to admit ignorance on any point.
Early the next week Sam returned to his duties in the city, and Joshua awaited impatiently the promised lottery papers.