Not until the last light was out in the last saloon in Piety Hollow, and
the last roisterer had driven off into the darkness carrying a Saturday
paper in his pocket, did Sam close the day's business.
And it was on a Saturday night that he decided to drop paper selling.
"I will take you into business with me," announced Freedom Smith, stopping
him as he hurried by. "You are getting too old to sell papers and you know
too much."
Sam, still intent upon the money to be made on that particular Saturday
night, did not stop to discuss the matter with Freedom, but for a year he
had been looking quietly about for something to go into and now he nodded
his head as he hurried away.
"It is the end of romance," shouted Telfer, who stood beside Freedom Smith
before Geiger's drug store and who had heard the offer. "A boy, who has
seen the secret workings of my mind, who has heard me spout Poe and
Browning, will become a merchant, dealing in stinking hides. I am overcome
by the thought."
The next day, sitting in the garden back of his house, Telfer talked to
Sam of the matter at length.
"For you, my boy, I put the matter of money in the first place," he
declared, leaning back in his chair, smoking a cigarette and from time to
time tapping Eleanor on the shoulder with his cane.
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