“I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you, kid. You come down here at nine o’clock every morning, open this joint up, and stay here till one o’clock. Then I come on and you go off till six in the evening. At six you come on and stay till ten, and call it a day. You can go to work right now. The sooner the better. In a week you will know the prices of the different things as well as I do, and I can leave you by yourself. Your wages will be three dollars a week and all the cigars you can smoke.”

“But I do not smoke.”

“Well, that’s your bad luck, kid, not mine. What do you say? Want to chance the job?”