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“You have impudence enough to run it yourself,” said the merchant, looking more closely at his importunate visitor.

“Wouldn’t be afeard to try,” said the boy, saucily, putting to his lips a half-smoked cigar which he had all this time held in his hand, and taking a long whiff. “I’ve a notion I could make dry-goods spin amazing. Jest hand me the reins and I bet I put her through at two-forty.”

The merchant laid aside the papers which he had been examining. He pushed back his chair from the table and faced his visitor.

He was a hale, handsome man of some fifty years of age, somewhat imperious in manner, but with a strong sense of humor in his face. He seemed to think that he had met an original character.

“What is your name?” asked the merchant.

“Will Somers.”

“Where do you live?”

“In this here big town of Philadelphia, but in a little street that I s’pose you never heered the name of. I make myself at home anywhere, though.”

“So it seems,” said the merchant, glancing at the handsome appointments of his private office, and then at the ragged dress of the boy.