"No," said Dick; "I'm goin' to knock off when I get to be ninety."

"Before that, I hope," said Frank, smiling.

"I really wish I could get somethin' else to do," said Dick,
soberly. "I'd like to be a office boy, and learn business, and grow
up 'spectable."

"Why don't you try, and see if you can't get a place, Dick?"

"Who'd take Ragged Dick?"

"But you aint ragged now, Dick."

"No," said Dick; "I look a little better than I did in my Washington
coat and Louis Napoleon pants. But if I got in a office, they
wouldn't give me more'n three dollars a week, and I couldn't live
'spectable on that."

"No, I suppose not," said Frank, thoughtfully. "But you would get
more at the end of the first year."

"Yes," said Dick; "but by that time I'd be nothin' but skin and
bones."

Frank laughed. "That reminds me," he said, "of the story of an
Irishman, who, out of economy, thought he would teach his horse to
feed on shavings. So he provided the horse with a pair of green
spectacles which made the shavings look eatable. But unfortunately,