“Why can’t you come and make me a visit?  We’ll have jolly fun.  Come and stay a month, old chap.  There is no one I should like better.  Your friend, Walter Boss.”

Hector read this letter with genuine delight.  It offered a way of escape, both for the unfortunate usher aad himself.  Nothing could be more “apropos” to quote Walter’s expression.

Our hero lost no time in seeking out Mr. Crabb.

“You seem in good spirits, Roscoe,” said the usher, his careworn face contrasting with the beaming countenance of his pupil.

“Yes, Mr. Crabb, I have reason to be, and so have you.”

“Have you heard from your friend?” asked the usher, hopefully.

“Yes, and it’s all right.”

Mr. Crabb looked ten years younger.

“Is it really true?” he asked.

“It is true that you are engaged as private tutor to my friend, Walter.  You’ll find him a splendid fellow, but I don’t know if the pay is sufficient,” continued Hector, gravely.

“I am willing to take less pay than I get here,” said the usher, “for the sake of getting away.”

“How much do you receive here?”

“Twenty dollar a month and board.  I might, perhaps, get along on a little less,” he added doubtfully.

“You won’t have to, Mr. Crabb.  You are offered sixty dollars a month and a home.”

“You are not in earnest, Roscoe?” asked the usher, who could not believe in his good fortune.

“I will read you the letter, Mr. Crabb.”

When it was read the usher looked radiant.  “Roscoe,” he said, “you come to me like an angel from heaven.  Just now I was sad and depressed; now it seems to me that the whole future is radiant.  Sixty dollars a month!  Why, it will make me a rich man.”

“Mr. Crabb,” said Hector, with a lurking spirit of fun, “can you really make up your mind to leave Smith Institute, and its kind and benevolent principal?”

“I don’t think any prisoner ever welcomed his release with deeper thankfulness,” said the usher.  “To be in the employ of a man whom you despise, yet to feel yourself a helpless and hopeless dependent on him is, I assure you, Roscoe, a position by no means to be envied.  For two years that has been my lot.”

“But it will soon be over.”

“Yes, thanks to you.  Why can’t you accompany me, Hector?  I ought not, perhaps, to draw you away, but—­”

“But listen to the letter I have received from my kind and considerate guardian, as he styles himself,” said Hector.

He read Allan Roscoe’s letter to the usher.

“He seems in a great hurry to condemn you,” said Mr. Crabb.

“Yes, and to get me off his hands,” said Hector, proudly.  “Well, he shall be gratified in the last.  I shall accept Walter’s invitation, and we will go up to New York together.”

“That will, indeed, please me.  Of course, you will undeceive your guardian.”