"The Es are gone?" said Phaeton. "Do you mean to say that you have been buying a font of type with no Es in it?"
"Yes; why? What's the harm in that?" said Ned. "You don't expect everything to be perfect when you buy things second-hand."
"Of course not," said Phaeton; "but what can you do without Es? If the Qs or the Xs were gone, it wouldn't so much matter; but there's hardly a word that hasn't at least one E in it. Just count the Es on a page of any book. And you've been fooling away your money on a font of type with no Es! Mr. Alvord ought to be ashamed of himself to cheat a boy like that."
"You needn't be scolding me for fooling away the money," said Ned. "What have you been doing, I should like to know? Fooling away the money on that old torrid-zontal balloon thing, which will probably make a shipwreck of you the first time you try it. And, besides, I didn't buy the type of Mr. Alvord."
"Where did you get it?"
"Bought it of a boy that I met on the stairs when I was coming down from Alvord's."
"Who was he?"
"I don't know. He lives on one of those cross-streets down by the aqueduct. I went to his house with him to get the type. He said he used to have a little office, but his father wouldn't let him keep it any more, just because the baby ate some of the ink."
"It's too bad," said Phaeton; "the type will never be of any use. What do you suppose could have become of the Es?"
"I don't know," said Ned, a little morosely, "unless the baby sister ate them too."