“Wonder who the other boys were?”
“I’m sure I don’t know.”
As he was in no hurry, Frank pushed his wheel along, and walked into Camperville with Samuel Windham.
“I shall not forget you,” said our hero, on parting with the young farmer. “If you hadn’t come up I don’t know what I should have done.”
“Oh, that’s all right.” And then they shook hands, and Samuel Windham walked on to a grocery store, where he traded his eggs for table commodities.
Reaching his room at the hotel, Frank placed the books he had purchased in the closet. He had expected to look them over before retiring, but felt too tired to do so. He procured his supper, and after a glance at a local weekly paper, returned to his apartment and went to bed.
Business around Camperville continued rather poor, and by the end of the week, Frank moved on to the next town, six miles westward. He crossed the Delaware River, and now found himself in Pennsylvania. Here business was a little better, and he took up his quarters at a hotel called the Grandmore House, which was partly filled with summer boarders.
At the hotel Frank fell in with rather a pleasant man by the name of Sinclair Basswood, who had at one time been the mayor of a New Jersey town. Mr. Basswood had a great idea of his own importance, and never grew tired of speaking of his rise in life.
“Stick to your work, my lad,” said Sinclair Basswood to Frank, graciously, “and some day you may become a mayor, as I did.”
“I don’t know as I want to become a mayor,” answered our hero. “I’d rather become a book publisher. Not but what it’s a great thing to be a mayor,” he added hastily.