If I was rich I'd try to help 'em
along."
"Perhaps you will be rich sometime, Dick."
Dick shook his head.
"I'm afraid all my wallets will be like this," said Dick, indicating
the one he had received from the dropper, "and will be full of
papers what aint of no use to anybody except the owner."
"That depends very much on yourself, Dick," said Frank. "Stewart
wasn't always rich, you know."
"Wasn't he?"
"When he first came to New York as a young man he was a teacher, and
teachers are not generally very rich. At last he went into business,
starting in a small way, and worked his way up by degrees. But there
was one thing he determined in the beginning: that he would be
strictly honorable in all his dealings, and never overreach any one
for the sake of making money. If there was a chance for him, Dick,
there is a chance for you."
"He knowed enough to be a teacher, and I'm awful ignorant,"
said Dick.
"But you needn't stay so."
"How can I help it?"
"Can't you learn at school?"
"I can't go to school 'cause I've got my livin' to earn. It wouldn't
do me much good if I learned to read and write, and just as I'd got
learned I starved to death."
"But are there no night-schools?"
"Yes."
"Why don't you go? I suppose you don't work in the evenings."
"I never cared much about it," said Dick, "and that's the truth. But
since I've got to talkin' with you, I think more about it.
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