"Often," he said gently; "and it was about the only name he could speak; he was a little fellow."
"Well, Edward, I should not think it would be such a very disagreeable name to you, when your father, who is gone, always used it, and always in kindness, you told me; and it is the only name by which little Johnny can remember you. There are two things to be thought of in this matter," Ray continued, after a moment, finding Edward not disposed to speak: "one is, if you hope to do anything with this old companion of yours, you must be ready to take worse things from him than a quiet, inoffensive little name like that; he will learn your right name, perhaps, in time. And the other is—What is Bob Turner's right name, my friend?"
Edward's face flushed, his lips quivered into a little smile, then he laughed outright.
"It would be ridiculous to call him Robert!" he said, still laughing. "Ray, here's my exercise, if you want it now."
And Ray heard no more complaints about the offending little name.
"Say, Tip, just go home with me to-night," Bob coaxed one evening, as Edward, having been detained late at the store, was leaving just as Bob was closing the shutters. "Mr. Ray's head is so bad you won't have any plaguy lessons to-night to hinder you. Every single fellow in the store but me is going to the theatre, and I am awful lonesome up there alone."
"It is a wonder you are not going too," said Edward.
"No, it ain't. I can keep a promise once in a while, I reckon. That Ray Minturn can do anything with a fellow, and I was fool enough to promise him that I wouldn't go. Come, go up home with me; do, that's a good fellow!"
"No," said Edward decidedly, "I can't."
"Now, Tip Lewis, I think you're real mean; you don't never come to see me no more than if I was in Guinea. You act as if you were ashamed of me, and I keep my word and behave myself, too; and you're a mean, chicken-hearted fellow, if you're ashamed to notice me now-a-days, just because you board in a big house and dress like a dandy."