"Yes, sir," replied Tim, and then he beckoned Sam to go out. He had made up his mind suddenly, and now that it was too late to draw back, he wanted to talk the matter over, and hear what Sam had to say about it.
There was no need for him to have feared that Sam did not look with favor upon the plan, for before they were out of sight of the loungers in the store that young man burst out in an envious tone:
"Well, you are the awfulest luckiest feller I ever heard of! Here you've gone an' got a chance to run a steamboat, where you won't have anything to do but jest sail 'round wherever you want to. I wish it was me that was going."
If Tim had been in doubt before as to the wisdom of the step he was about to take, he was perfectly satisfied now that Sam was so delighted with it, and he began to think that perhaps he had been fortunate.
Mr. Simpson did not seem to think the opening in life which had been so suddenly discovered for Tim was so very brilliant, and Mrs. Simpson actually looked as if she felt sorry. But as neither of them made any objection to it, or offered the boy a home with them, there was nothing to prevent him from carrying out the agreement he had made.
At a very early hour on the following morning Tim was up and dressed. Sam's glowing pictures of the happy life he was about to lead had so excited him that he was anxious to begin it at once, and his sleep had been troubled by dreams of life on a steamboat under all kinds of possible and impossible circumstances.
Mr. Simpson gave him twenty-five cents as a nest-egg, to the fortune he was about to make, and when Mrs. Simpson packed a generous lunch for him, he choked up so badly that it was only with the greatest difficulty he could thank her for her kindness.
"Be a good boy, and never do anything to be ashamed of," was the good lady's parting charge, and he answered:
"I'll try hard, so's you sha'n't be sorry you was so good to me."
Sam walked toward the store with him, while as lonely and envious a feeling as he ever knew came over him as he thought of all the things Tim would see, simply because he had neither home nor parents, while he, who had both, was obliged to remain where he could see nothing.