“Where have you been travelling?”

“In B——.”

“Fine place.  Books sell well there?”

“Very well; in fact, I sold out all my stock by noon yesterday.”

“How many books did you carry?”

“Fifty.”

“You did well.”

“I should think you did!” added Annie, with an enthusiasm which quite upset all Bobby’s assumed indifference.  “Fifty books!”

“Yes, Miss Annie; and I have brought you a copy of the book I have been selling; I thought you would like to read it.  It is a splendid work, and will be the book of the season.”

“I shall be delighted to read it,” replied Annie, taking the proffered volume.  “It looks real good,” she continued, as she turned over the leaves.

“It is first rate; I have read it through.”

“It was very kind of you to think of me when you have so much business on your mind,” added she, with a roguish smile.

“I shall never have so much business on my mind that I cannot think of my friends,” replied Bobby, so gallantly and so smartly that it astonished himself.

“I was just thinking what I should read next; I am so glad you have come.”

“Never mind her, Bobby; all she wanted was the book,” interposed Squire Lee, laughing.

“Now, pa!”

“Then I shall bring her one very often.”

“You are too bad, pa,” said Annie, who, like most young ladies just entering their teens, resented any imputation upon the immaculateness of human love, or human friendship.

“I have got a little money for you, Squire Lee,” continued Bobby, thinking it time the subject was changed.

He took out his gilded memorandum book, whose elegant appearance rather startled the squire, and from its “treasury department” extracted the little roll of bills, representing an aggregate of ten dollars which he had carefully reserved for his creditor.

“Never mind that, Bobby,” replied the squire.  “You will want all your capital to do business with.”

“I must pay my debts before I think of any thing else.”

“A very good plan, Bobby, but this is an exception to the general rule.”

“No, sir, I think not.  If you please, I insist upon paying you tea dollars on my note.”

“O, well, if you insist, I suppose I can’t help myself.”

“I would rather pay it, I shall feel so much better.”

“You want to indorse it on the note, I suppose.”

That was just what Bobby wanted.  Indorsed on the note was the idea, and our hero had often passed that expression through his mind.  There was something gratifying in the act to a man of business integrity like himself; it was discharging a sacred obligation,—­he had already come to deem it a sacred duty to pay one’s debts,—­and as the squire wrote the indorsement across the back of the note, he felt more like a hero than ever before.

“‘Pay as you go’ is an excellent idea; John Randolph called it the philosopher’s stone,” added Squire Lee, as he returned the note to his pocket book.