"
"Then I will bring round some of the ties to-morrow. I have two or three
kinds. There is nothing very hard about any of them. I think they would
be easy to make."
"That will suit me much better than making shirts."
"Suppose I admit you to the firm, mother? I can get a large signboard,
and have painted on it:
PAUL HOFFMAN AND MOTHER,
DEALERS IN NECKTIES.
How would that sound?"
"I think I would leave the business part in your hands, Paul."
"I begin to feel like a wholesale merchant already," said Paul. "Who
knows but I may be one some day?"
"Many successful men have begun as low down," said his mother; "with
energy and industry much may be accomplished."
"Do you think I'll ever be a wholesale painter?" asked Jimmy, whose
small ears had drank in the conversation.
"Better try for it, Jimmy," said Paul. "I don't know exactly what a
wholesale painter is, unless it's one who paints houses."
"I shouldn't like that," said the little boy.
"Then, Jimmy, you'd better be a retail painter."
"I guess I will," said Jimmy, seriously.
Note: Thus far we have accompanied Paul Hoffman in his
career. He is considerably better off than when we met him
peddling prize packages in front of the post office. But we
have reason to believe that greater success awaits him. He
will figure in the next two volumes of this series, more
particularly in the second, to be called "Slow and Sure; or,
From the Sidewalk to the Shop.
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