"Then, will you write to my aunt, and assure her that my habits are good, and that her informant has willfully lied? It will relieve her anxiety."
"With pleasure."
The next day Mrs. Bradford received a letter, very enthusiastic in its tone, which completely exonerated our hero from the charges brought against him.
"Your nephew," it concluded, "bids fair to become one of our best clerks. He is polite, faithful, and continually trying to improve. You need have no apprehension about him. It would be very foolish for him to resign his situation."
Chapter XXVIII — Sam Praises Ben
The same mail that carried the bookkeeper's letter to Mrs. Bradford also carried a letter from Ben to Sam Archer. It ran thus:
"Sam Archer: You might be in better business than telling lies about me to my aunt. If you think I look dissipated your eyes deceive you, and I advise you to wear glasses the next time you come to Boston. If you choose to come to the store, it is none of my business; but you need not take the trouble in order to see me.
I quite understand your anxiety to get me back into the mill. There was a time when I should have been glad of a place there; but now I have a place that suits me better, and don't care to change. "Benjamin Bradford"