The $500 Check — page 184: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AN EMBARRASSING POSITION. 167 “*Oh,no! Iam working for you, you know, and it wasn’t my own time I was using.” ‘That's true! Still, Iam willin’ to give you two cents to encourage you to be honest.”’ **Thank you, Mr. Wilson; but I don’t need any reward for that.”’ ‘‘You’re a good boy, and if you stay with me I'll make a man of you.” ‘*Thank you.” Bert was privately of opinion that if he re. mained till the age of twenty-one in Silas Wil- son’s employ, boarding at his table, he would grow into a very thin, under-sized man indeed. Supper was a less substantial meal than din- ner in the Wilson household, consisting of bread and butter and tea, with the addition of a plate of doughnuts, which were so tough and hard that it occurred to Bert that they would make very good base-balls if they had been of the right shape. After supper he went home for an hour. ‘‘Don’t you feel very tired, Bert?’’ asked his mother. ‘Yes, mother, but I feel still more hungry. CORNIELOOC “cS (EO) m