“How do I look now?” he asked, when he met Miss Annie Raymond at her own door.

“Splendidly, Joe.  I thought you were a young swell from the city.”

After supper Annie said, her eyes sparkling with mischief: 

“Suppose we walk over to Major Norton’s and see Oscar.”

“Just what I wanted to propose.”

Oscar was out in the front yard, when he caught sight of Joe and Annie Raymond approaching.  He did not at first recognize Joe, but thought, like the young lady, that it was some swell from the city.

“You see I’ve come again, Oscar,” said Joe, smiling.

Oscar could not utter a word.  He was speechless with astonishment.

“I thought you were poor,” he uttered, at last.

“I have had better luck than you thought.”

“I suppose you spent all your money for those clothes.”

“You are mistaken, Oscar.  I am not so foolish.  I left between two and three thousand dollars in a New York bank, and I have more than twice that in San Francisco.”

“It isn’t possible!” exclaimed Oscar, surprised and disappointed.

“Here is my bank-book; you can look at it,” and Joe pointed to a deposit of twenty-five hundred dollars.  “I don’t think, Oscar, it will pay me to accept your father’s offer and take my old place.”

“I don’t understand it.  How did you do it?” asked the bewildered Oscar.

“I suppose it was my luck,” said Joe.

“Not wholly that,” said Annie Raymond.  “It was luck and labor.”

“I accept the amendment, Miss Annie.”

Oscar’s manner changed at once.  Joe, the successful Californian, was very different from Joe, the hired boy.  He became very attentive to our hero, and before he left town condescended to borrow twenty dollars of him, which he never remembered to repay.  He wanted to go back to California with Joe, but his father would not consent.

When Joe returned to San Francisco, by advice of Mr. Morgan he sold out his restaurant to Watson and took charge of Mr. Morgan’s real estate business.  He rose with the rising city, became a very rich man, and now lives in a handsome residence on one of the hills that overlook the bay.  He has an excellent wife—­our old friend, Annie Raymond—­and a fine family of children.  His domestic happiness is by no means the smallest part of Joe’s luck.

THE END