"Why, he told me."
"Oh; are you an' Tom friends?"
"We're not enemies. Tom's in luck to have so much money."
"Wall," said Annie, "he's a fool to flash it all of a sudden. Pa took him for night clerk when he didn't have a cent—and it wasn't so long ago, either. He gets his board an' five dollars a week. Folks are goin' to wonder where he got all his fine clothes, an' them di'monds, an' how he can afford to buy Barker's cigar store. I asked Abe about it an' Abe says he guesses Tom got the money from an aunt that jus' died."
"Perhaps he did."
"Well, where'd he get the aunt? Tom's got two brothers that are peddlers an' a father who's a track-walker, an' he's got a mother what takes in washin'. If there's an aunt, she's some relation to the rest of the family, so why didn't she leave them some money, as well as Tom?"
"I don't know, but I'm glad Tom is so well fixed," answered Josie, rather absently, for her eye had fallen on the menu card beside her plate, and the menu card had somehow conveyed a new thought to her mind. She picked it up and examined it critically. Part of it was printed in a queer, open-faced type—all capitals—while the balance of the list of dishes had been written in with pen and ink. These printed bills would do for a good many breakfasts, for they mentioned only the staples, while the supplementary dishes were day by day added in writing.
"I wonder who prints your bills-of-fare?" she said to Annie Boyle.
"Why do you wonder that?" demanded Annie.
"I like the type, and I want to get some cards printed from it."