“Very, very; and that is the last case.”

“You have no other cases?”

“No.”

“Oh! well, send it round at once; for I am sure—­”

“Mr. Newt,” said the unconscious boy, smiling with the satisfaction of one who is able to correct an error, “you are mistaken, Sir.  There are a dozen more cases just like that up stairs.”

“Ah! then I don’t care about it,” said Mr. Hadley, passing on.  The head of the large commission-house of Boniface Newt & Co. looked upon the point of apoplexy.

“Good-morning, Mr. Newt; sorry that I see nothing farther,” said Mr. Hadley, and he went out.

Mr. Newt turned fiercely to the unconscious boy.

“What do you mean, Sir, by saying and doing such things?” asked he, sharply.

“What things, Sir?” demanded the appalled boy.

“Why, getting the yard-stick when I winked to you not to find it, and telling of other cases when I said that one was the last.”

“Why, Sir, because it wasn’t the last,” said the boy.

“For business purposes it was the last, Sir,” replied Mr. Newt.  “You don’t know the first principles of business.  The tongue is always the mischief-maker.  Hold your tongue, Sir, hold your tongue, or you’ll lose your place, Sir.”

Mr. Boniface Newt, ruffled and red, went into his office, where he found Abel reading the newspaper and smoking a cigar.  The clerks outside were pale at the audacity, of Newt, Jun.  The young man was dressed extremely well.  He had improved the few weeks of his residence in the city by visits to Frost the tailor, in Maiden Lane; and had sent his measure to Forr, the bootmaker in Paris, artists who turned out the prettiest figures that decorated the Broadway of those days.  Mr. Abel Newt, to his father’s eyes, had the air of a man of superb leisure; and as he sat reading the paper, with one leg thrown over the arm of the office-chair, and the smoke languidly curling from his lips, Mr. Boniface Newt felt profoundly, but vaguely, uncomfortable, as if he had some slight prescience of a future of indolence for the hope of the house of Newt.

As his father entered, Mr. Abel dropped by his side the hand still holding the newspaper, and, without removing the cigar, said, through the cloud of smoke he blew,

“Father, you were imparting your philosophy of life.”

The older gentleman, somewhat discomposed, answered,

“Yes, I was saying what a pity it is that men are such d——­d rascals, because they force every body else to be so too.  But what can you do?  It’s all very fine to talk, but we’ve got to live.  I sha’n’t be such an ass as to run into the street and say, ’I gave ten cents a yard for those goods, but you must pay me twenty.’  Not at all.  It’s other men’s business to find that out if they can.  It’s a great game, business is, and the smartest chap wins.  Every body knows we are going to get the largest price we can.