"Really? How much? Can I sing well enough?" and he clutched her arm excitedly, for this unexpected ray of hope dazzled him.
"Some of them will have ten dollars a week, and some more,—the real nice ones, like Lee, the singing boy, who is a wonder," answered Will, in the tone of one well informed on such points.
"Ten dollars!" gasped Jimmy, for the immensity of the sum took his breath away. "Could I get that? How long? Where do we go? Do they really want us fellows? Are you sure it's all true?"
"It was all in the paper, and Miss Pym, the teacher who boards at our house, told Ma about it. The folks advertised for school-children, sixty of 'em, and will really pay; and Ma said I could go and try, and all the money I get I'm going to put in a bank and have for my own. Don't you believe me now?"
Miss Pym and the newspapers settled the matter in Jimmy's mind, and made him more anxious than before about the other point.
"Do you think I would have any chance?" he asked, still holding Will, who seemed inclined for another dance.
"I know you would. Don't you do splendidly at school? And didn't they want you for a choir boy, only your mother couldn't spare you?" answered Will, decidedly; for Jimmy did love music, and had a sweet little pipe of his own, as she well knew.
"Mother will have to spare me now, if they pay like that. I can work all day and do without sleep to earn money this way. Oh, Will, I'm so glad you came, for I was just ready to run away to sea. There didn't seem anything else to do," whispered Jimmy in a choky sort of tone, as hopes and fears struggled together in his boyish mind.
"Run as fast as you like, and I'll go too. We'll sail in the 'Pinafore,' and come home with our pockets full of money.
"'Sing, hey, the merry maiden and the tar!'"