“You’re getting on fast, Harry,” said Ferguson approvingly.

“I like it,” said our hero.  “I am glad I decided to be a printer.”

“I wish I wasn’t one,” grumbled Clapp, the younger journeyman.

“Don’t you like it?”

“Not much.  It’s hard work and poor pay.  I just wish I was in my brother’s shoes.  He is a bookkeeper in Boston, with a salary of twelve hundred a year, while I am plodding along on fifteen dollars week.”

“You may do better some day,” said Ferguson.

“Don’t see any chance of it.”

“If I were in your place, I would save up part of my salary, and by and by have an office, and perhaps a paper of my own.”

“Why don’t you do it, then?” sneered Clapp.

“Because I have a family to support from my earnings—­you have only yourself.”

“It doesn’t help me any; I can’t save anything out of fifteen dollars a week.”

“You mean you won’t,” said Ferguson quietly.

“No I don’t.  I mean I can’t.”

“How do you expect I get along, then?  I have a wife and two children to support, and only get two dollars a week more than you.”

“Perhaps you get into debt.”

“No; I owe no man a dollar,” said Ferguson emphatically.  “That isn’t all.  I save two dollars a week; so that I actually support four on fifteen dollars a week—­your salary.  What do you say to that?”

“I don’t want to be mean,” said Clapp.

“Nor I. I mean to live comfortably, but of course I have to be economical.”

“Oh, hang economy!” said Clapp impatiently.  “The old man used to lecture me about economy till I got sick of hearing the word.”

“It is a good thing, for all that,” persisted Ferguson.  “You’ll think so some day, even if you don’t now.”

“I guess you mean to run opposition to young Franklin, over there,” sneered Clapp, indicating Harry, who had listened to the discussion with not a little interest.

“I think he and I will agree together pretty well,” said Ferguson, smiling.  “Franklin’s a good man to imitate.”

“If there are going to be two Franklins in the office, it will be time for me to clear out,” returned Clapp.

“You can do better.”

“How is that?”

“Become Franklin No. 3.”

“You don’t catch me imitating any old fogy like that.  As far as I know anything about him, he was a mean, stingy old curmudgeon!” exclaimed Clapp with irritation.

“That’s rather strong language, Clapp,” said Mr. Anderson, looking up from his desk with a smile.  “It doesn’t correspond with the general estimate of Franklin’s character.”

“I don’t care,” said Clapp doggedly, “I wouldn’t be like Franklin if I could.  I have too much self-respect.”

Ferguson laughed, and Harry wanted to, but feared he should offend the younger journeyman, who evidently had worked himself into a bad humor.