“I earn every cent of it, Mr. Graham,” said Herbert, whose views on the salary question differed essentially from those of his employer.

The next morning Mr. Graham received a letter which evidently disturbed him.  Before referring to its contents, it is necessary to explain that he had one son, nineteen years of age, who had gone to Boston two years previous, to take a place in a dry-goods store on Washington Street.  Ebenezer Graham, Jr., or Eben, as he was generally called, was, in some respects, like his father.  He had the same features, and was quite as mean, so far as others were concerned, but willing to spend money for his own selfish pleasures.  He was fond of playing pool, and cards, and had contracted a dangerous fondness for whisky, which consumed all the money he could spare from necessary expenses, and even more, so that, as will presently appear, he failed to meet his board bills regularly.  Eben had served an apprenticeship in his father’s store, having been, in fact, Tom Tripp’s predecessor; he tired of his father’s strict discipline, and the small pay out of which he was required to purchase his clothes, and went to Boston to seek a wider sphere.

To do Eben justice, it must be admitted that he had good business capacity, and if he had been able, like his father, to exercise self-denial, and make money-getting his chief enjoyment, he would no doubt have become a rich man in time.  As it was, whenever he could make his companions pay for his pleasures, he did so.

I now come to the letter which had brought disquietude to the storekeeper.

It ran thus: 

“Dear sir:  I understand that you are the father of Mr. Eben Graham, who has been a boarder at my house for the last six months.  I regret to trouble you, but he is now owing me six weeks board, and I cannot get a cent out of him, though he knows I am a poor widow, dependent on my board money for my rent and house expenses.  As he is a minor, the law makes you responsible for his bills, and, though I dislike to trouble you, I am obliged, in justice to myself, to ask you to settle his board bill, which I inclose.

“You will do me a great favor if you will send me the amount—­thirty dollars—­within a week, as my rent is coming due.

“Yours respectfully, Susan Jones.”

The feelings of a man like Ebenezer Graham can be imagined when he read this unpleasant missive.

“Thirty dollars!” he groaned.  “What can the graceless boy be thinking of, to fool away his money, and leave his bills to be settled by me.  If this keeps on, I shall be ruined!  It’s too bad, when I am slaving here, for Eben to waste my substance on riotous living.  I’ve a great mind to disown him.  Let him go his own way, and fetch up in the poorhouse, if he chooses.”

But it is not easy for a man to cast off an only son, even though he is as poorly supplied with natural affections as Ebenezer Graham.  Besides, Eben’s mother interceded for him, and the father, in bitterness of spirit, was about to mail a registered letter to Mrs. Jones, when the cause of his anguish suddenly made his appearance in the store.