"Thank you very much for your kind invitation," said Frank, politely.
Mrs. Vivian bade him good-morning, very favorably impressed with his manners and deportment.
Frank looked upon the proposal made him by Mrs. Vivian as a piece of great good-fortune. In his new position, excellent as were the beds at the lodging-house, he found it inconvenient to go there to sleep. Once or twice, on account of the late hour at which he was released from duty, he was unable to secure admittance, and had to pay fifty cents for a bed at a hotel on the European system. He had for some time been thinking seriously of hiring a room; but the probable expense deterred him. At Mrs. Vivian's he would have nothing to pay.
In the evening he changed his uniform for the neat suit given him by Mr. Bowen, and about eight o'clock rang the bell of the house in Thirty-eighth street.
He was at once ushered into the presence of Mrs. Vivian and her son.
"I am glad to see you, my young friend," said Mrs. Vivian, glancing with approval at the neat appearance of her young visitor. "Fred, this is the young man who brought you home last night."
"I am much obliged to you," said Fred Vivian, offering his hand to Frank. "I am ashamed of having been found in such a place."
"I don't think the young men with you were very much your friends," said Frank; "I detected one in cheating you."
"You mean at cards?"
"I don't mean that, though I presume they did; but you handed a ten-dollar bill to one of them, and he took it as a five."