"No; he's young. I don't care to take him among such wild fellows as you."
"The last time I played billiards with Dacres he won a hundred dollars of me," said Mordaunt, as they passed on. "It might have been so to-night; but, now I have your company, I am safe."
On reaching home Tom spent an hour and a half in study, Mordaunt assisting him. The young man became interested in his task, and went to bed much better satisfied with himself.
CHAPTER XVI.
MAURICE IS ASTONISHED.
Maurice Walton felt very much annoyed at the prospect of having Tom for a fellow-clerk. He felt jealous of him on account of the evident partiality of Bessie Benton for his society. He suspected, from Tom's style of talking, that he was "low and uneducated," and he would have given considerable to know that his hated rival had been a New York bootblack. But this knowledge he could not obtain from Tom. The latter delighted in mystifying him, and exciting suspicions which he afterward learned to be groundless.
Bright and early Tom made his appearance in front of Mr. Ferguson's establishment. As he came up one way, he met Maurice, looking sleepy and cross, coming from a different direction.
"Good-morning, Maurice," said our hero, good-naturedly. "Have you just got out of bed?"
"No," answered Maurice, crossly. "My name is Walton."
"How are you, Walton?"