‘Yes, take him,’ Peterkin said to his foreman, ’take him, and put him to the emery wheel; that’s the place for such upstarts; that’ll take the starch out of him double quick.  He’s a bad egg, he is, and proud as Lucifer.  I don’t suppose he’d touch my Bill or my Ann’Lizy with a ten-foot pole.  Put him to the wheel.  Bad egg! bad egg!’

For some moat unaccountable reason, old Peterkin had a bitter prejudice against the boy, on whose account he had once been turned from the Tracy house; and though he had forgiven the Tracys, and would now have voted for Frank for Congressman if he had the chance, he still cherished his animosity against Harold, designating him as an upstart and a bad egg, who was to be put to the wheel.  So Harold was ‘put to the wheel’ until he got a bit of steel in his eye, and his hands were blistered.  But he did not mind the latter so much, because Jerrie cried over them at night and kissed them in the morning, and bathed them in cosmoline, and called Peterkin a mean old thing, and offered to go herself to the wheel.

But to this Harold only laughed.  He could stand it, he said, and a dollar a day was not to be sneezed at.  He could wear gloves and save his hands.

But the appearance of gloves was the signal for a general hooting and jeering from the boys of his own age who were employed there, and who had from the first looked askance at Harold because they knew how greatly he was their superior, and fancied an affront in everything he did and every word he said, it was spoken so differently from their own dialect.

‘I can’t stand it,’ Harold said to Jerrie, after a week’s trial with the gloves.  ’I’d rather sweep the streets than be jeered at as I am.  I don’t mind the work.  I am getting used to it, but the boys are awful.  Why, they call me ‘sissy,’ and ‘Miss Hastings,’ and all that.’

So Harold left the employ of Peterkin, greatly to the chagrin of that functionary, who had found him the most faithful boy he had ever had.  But this was years ago, and matters had changed somewhat since then.  Harold was a man now—­a graduate from Harvard, with an air and dignity about him which commanded respect even from Peterkin, who was sitting upon his high stool when Harold came in with his application.  Billy, who was Harold’s fast friend, was now in the business with his father, and as he chanced to be present, the thing was soon arranged, and Harold received into the office at a salary of twelve dollars per week, which was soon increased to fifteen and twenty, and at last, as the autumn advanced and Harold began to talk of taking the same school in town which he had once before taught, he was offered $1,500 a year, if he would remain, as foreman of the office, where his services were invaluable.  But Harold had chosen the law for his profession, and as teaching school was more congenial to him than writing in the office, and would give him more time for reading law, he declined the salary and took the school, which he kept for two successive winters, going between times into the office whenever his services were needed, which was very often, as they knew his worth, and Billy was always glad to have him there.