"I like you, my young friend," he said; "you are a boy of much promise. Come up to my office with me. I am a lawyer. I'd like to talk with you further."
Joe hesitated. He had much to do, but something in the man's face and manner, some strange, haunting sense of familiarity, the fascination of his presence, his smooth and elegant manner of speech, made an appeal to him that he could not resist. They went together to the lawyer's office, and Joe saw for the first time a real law office and a law library.
When he saw the rows of shelves his eyes brightened.
"Oh," he cried, "what a library! How splendid! How I should like to read them all!"
The lawyer laughed. "I'm afraid you would find some of those books rather dry reading. They are all law books. A good many of them are reports."
"I know. That is what interests me so much. All my life my greatest ambition has been to be a lawyer."
"Is that possible!" cried the gentleman, evidently much pleased. "Well, well! So you would like to be a lawyer, would you? Why don't you, then? I am sure you would make a good one."
Joe's face flushed with pleasure.
"There is nothing in the world I want so much," he answered. "But we have a big family, my father is not a rich man, and we have recently homesteaded on the Blue. There is an awful lot of work to be done by pioneers, and I don't get much chance to read." Then, after a pause, "And besides I haven't any books."
"Would you read them if you had?"