“I don’t see but that you’ll have to let me pawn a few of your trinkets, mother. Whatever we’ll lack to make up the full amount I may be able to borrow from Ed Potter. If he’s got it, he’ll let me have it right off the reel.”
“I’ve always had a horror for a pawnshop,” said Mrs. Hazard, with a little shudder. “It brings the realization of one’s circumstances too much to heart.”
“I know, mother; but I don’t see how we can avoid patronizing the place under our present emergency. We must have the rent.”
“True,” answered his mother, with a sigh; “but I won’t agree to let you go there until the last moment.”
That night Jack got three dollars from his friend Ed, and at the same time told him he had got a situation in Wall Street.
Potter was delighted to hear that his chum had secured such a fine job.
“It’s a great sight better than printing,” he remarked.
“I hear the men in our office every day say the trade is going to the dogs on account of the machines.”
“How is that?” asked Jack.
“Well, you see, an operator on a Mergenthaler can stack up forty thousand ems per day and upward, according to the copy and his expertness, while a hand compositor is lucky to average eight thousand. So, you see, the piece hands, as they call ’em, aren’t wanted any more.”