“Oh, yes; I know now! You’re the young lad who said, ‘I thank you,’ when you received the book in school.”
“I thank you again for it, sir. I have read it a great many times. I have it now.”
“And you want to be a flour and grain merchant?”
“Yes, sir. I should like that best of anything.”
“Why don’t you go to sea with your father?”
“Mother wants me to stay with her. If it were not for that, my brother-in-law would take me into his store.”
“How old are you?”
“Sixteen, last April.”
“Ay! ay! And what can you do, my boy?”
“Almost anything, sir. Mother brought me up to work. Ever since I was seven years old I have sawed and split wood. I like to work, sir, and that made me want to come here; there seems enough to do.”