"Who for?" asked Bert.
"For myself," said little old Mr. Crooker, with a smile.
Bert stared, perfectly aghast at the situation. This, then, was the man whom he had invited to dinner, and treated so patronizingly the preceding Thursday!
"I—I thought—you was a poor man."
"I am a poor man," said Mr. Crooker, locking his safe. "Money doesn't make a man rich. I've money enough. I own houses in the city. They give me something to think of, and so keep me alive. I had truer riches once, but I lost them long ago."
From the way the old man's voice trembled and eyes glistened, Bert thought he must have meant by these riches friends he had lost—wife and children, perhaps.
"To think of me inviting you to dinner!" the boy cried, abashed and ashamed.
"It was odd." And Mr. Crooker showed his white front teeth with a smile. "But it may turn out to have been a lucky circumstance for both of us. I like you; I believe in you; and I've an offer to make to you: I want a trusty, bright boy in this office, somebody I can bring up to my business, and leave it with, as I get too old to attend to it myself. What do you say?"
What could Bert say?
Again that afternoon he walked—or rather, ran—to his mother, and after consulting with her, joyfully accepted Mr. Crooker's offer.