"Yes, Sir."

The millionaire stared at the young man.

"Ma's going to Saratogy," remarked Mr. Van Boozenberg. "She said she wanted to go. Werry well, sez I, ma, go."

Messrs. Newt & Son smiled deferentially, and hoped Mrs. Van B. would enjoy herself.

"No, I ain't no fear of that," replied the millionaire.

"Mr. Van Boozenberg," said Boniface Newt, half-hesitatingly, "you were very kind to undertake that little favor--I--I--"

"Oh! yes, I come in to say I done that as you wanted. It's all right."

"And, Mr. Van Boozenberg, I am pleased to introduce to you my son Abel, who has just entered the house."

Abel rose and bowed.

"Have you been in the store?" asked the old gentleman.

"No, Sir, I've been at school."

"What! to school till now? Why, you must be twenty years old!" exclaimed Mr. Van Boozenberg, in great surprise.

"Yes, Sir, in my twentieth year."

"Why, Mr. Newt," said Mr. Van B., with the air of a man who is in entire perplexity, "what on earth has your boy been doing at school until now?"

"It was his grandfather's will, Sir," replied Boniface Newt.

"Well, well, a great pity! a werry great pity! Ma wanted one of our boys to go to college. Ma, sez I, what on earth should Corlaer go to college for? To get learnin', pa, sez ma. To get learnin'! sez I. I'll get him learnin', sez I, down to the store, Werry well, sez ma. Werry well, sez I, and so 'twas; and I think I done a good thing by him."

Mr. Van Boozenberg talked at much greater length of his general intercourse with ma. Mr. Boniface Newt regarded him more and more contemptuously.

But the familiar style of the old gentleman's conversation begot a corresponding familiarity upon the part of Mr. Newt. Mr. Van Boozenberg learned incidentally that Abel had never been in business before. He observed the fresh odor of cigars in the counting-room--he remarked the extreme elegance of Abel's attire, and the inferential tailor's bills.

He learned that Mrs. Newt and the family were enjoying themselves at Saratoga. He derived from the conversation and his observation that there were very large family expenses to be met by Boniface Newt.

Meanwhile that gentleman had continually no other idea of his visitor than that he was insufferable. He had confessed to Abel that the old man was shrewd. His shrewdness was a proverb. But he is a dull, ignorant, ungrammatical, and ridiculous old ass for all that, thought Boniface Newt; and the said ass sitting in Boniface Newt's counting-room, and amusing and fatiguing Messrs. Newt & Son with his sez I's, and sez shes, and his mas, and his done its, was quietly making up his mind that the house of Newt & Son had received no accession of capital or strength by the entrance of the elegant Abel into a share of its active management, and that some slight whispers which he had heard remotely affecting the standing of the house must be remembered.

"A werry pretty store you have here, Mr. Newt. Find Pearl Street as good as Beaver?"

"Oh yes, Sir," replied Boniface Newt, bowing and rubbing his hands. "Call again, Sir; it's a rare pleasure to see you here, Mr. Van Boozenberg."

"Well, you know, ma, sez she, now pa you mustn't sit in draughts. It's so sort of draughty down town in your horrid offices, pa, sez she--sez ma, you know--that I'm awful 'fraid you'll catch your death, sez she, and I must mind ma, you know. Good-mornin', Mr. Newt, a werry good-mornin', Sir," said the old gentleman, as he stepped out.

"Do you have much of that sort of thing to undergo in business, father?"

asked Abel, when Jacob Van Boozenberg had gone.

"My dear son," replied the older Mr. Newt, "the world is made up of fools, bores, and knaves. Some of them speak good grammar and use white cambric pocket-handkerchiefs, some do not. It's dreadful, I know, and I am rather tired of a world where you are busy driving donkeys with a chance of their presently driving you."

Mr. Boniface Newt shook his foot pettishly.

"Father," said Abel.

"Well."

"Which is Uncle Lawrence--a fool, a bore, or a knave?"

Mr. Boniface Newt's foot stopped, and, after looking at his son for a few moments, he answered:

"Abel, your Uncle Lawrence is a singular man. He's a sort of exception to general rules. I don't understand him, and he doesn't help me to. When he was a boy he went to India and lived there several years. He came home once and staid a little while, and then went back again, although I believe he was rich. It was mysterious, I never could quite understand it--though, of course, I believe there was some woman in it. Neither your mother nor I could ever find out much about it. By-and-by he came home again, and has been in business here ever since. He's a bachelor, you know, and his business is different from mine, and he has queer friends and tastes, so that I don't often see him except when he comes to the house, and that isn't very often."

"He's rich, isn't he?" asked Abel.

"Yes, he's very rich, and that's the curious part of it," answered his father, "and he gives away a great deal of money in what seems to me a very foolish way. He's a kind of dreamer--an impracticable man. He pays lots of poor people's rents, and I try to show him that he is merely encouraging idleness and crime. But I can't make him see it. He declares that, if a sewing-girl makes but two dollars a week and has a helpless mother and three small sisters to support besides rent and fuel, and so on, it's not encouraging idleness to help her with the rent. Well, I suppose it _is_ hard sometimes with some of those people. But you've no right to go by particular cases in these matters. You ought to go by the general rule, as I constantly tell him. 'Yes,' says he, in that smiling way of his which does put me almost beside myself, 'yes, you shall go by the general rule, and let people starve; and I'll go by particular cases, and feed 'em.' Then he is just as rich as if he were an old flint like Van Boozenberg. Well, it is the funniest, foggiest sort of world. I swear I don't see into it at all--I give it all up. I only know one thing; that it's first in first win. And that's extremely sad, too, you know. Yes, very sad! Where was I? Ah yes! that we are all dirty scoundrels."

Abel had relighted his cigar, after Mr. Van Boozenberg's departure, and filled the office with smoke until the atmosphere resembled the fog in which his father seemed to be floundering.

"Abel, merchants ought not to smoke cigars in their counting-rooms,"

said his father, in a half-pettish way.

"No, I suppose not," replied Abel, lightly; "they ought to smoke other people. But tell me, father, do you know nothing about the woman that you say was mixed up with Uncle Lawrence's affairs?"

"Nothing at all"

"Not even her name?"

"Not a syllable."

"Pathetic and mysterious," rejoined Abel; "a case of unhappy love, I suppose."

"If it is so," said Mr. Newt, "your Uncle Lawrence is the happiest miserable man I ever knew."

"Well, there's a difference among men, you know, father. Some wear their miseries like an order in their button-holes. Some do as the Spartan boy did when the wolf bit him."

"How'd the Spartan boy do?" asked Mr. Newt.

"He covered it up, laughed, and dropped dead."

"Gracious!" said Mr. Boniface Newt.

"Or like Boccaccio's basil-pot," continued Abel, calmly; pouring forth smoke, while his befogged papa inquired,

"What on earth do you mean by Boccaccio's basil-pot?"

"Why, a girl's lover had his head cut off, and she put it in a flower-pot, and covered it up that way, and instead of laughing herself, set flowers to blooming over it."

"Goodness me, Abel, what are you talking about?"