"I wouldn't take it without," replied the boy, drawing himself proudly up to his full height. Only last week he told her not to encourage the street beggars, but to give to those she knew were worthy, and who tried to help themselves. "Once in a while, too, he meets me with my basket, and he looks in and says, 'That's all right, boy.'"
Just at this moment the door opened, and Mr. Danforth entered. He was quite a gentlemanly-looking man, of about thirty-five years. A close observer might have noticed a shade of anxiety passing over the wife's countenance; but after a second glance she seemed happily disappointed, and her spirits rose accordingly.
"You are just in time," she said; "dinner is all ready."
"And I'm ready for it," was the hearty reply. "I've been walking all the morning, and I expect at last I've found just about the right thing for me to do. Ho! those birds look as if they would relish finely!"
Harrison then repeated the story of the dyspeptic gentleman, at which his father laughed and said, "It's an ill wind that blows no one good. Now I'm perfectly willing he should order dinners and pay for them; we'll find good appetites for them, wont we, Bub?"
"I suppose," remarked Mrs. Danforth, "that he is one of those who will not work, and therefore, though he has an abundance, cannot eat."
"Waiter said he looked awful sickly," added Harrison.
"I expect I've engaged myself in a first-rate situation," resumed Mr. Danforth, laying down the bones of a chicken he had been sucking.
"What is it?" eagerly inquired his wife.
"Why, it's a kind of an overseer-general in an oyster saloon."