“Bless my soul!  Bless my soul!  Forgot you, child.  Come on, come on!  I’ll go with you, else those rascals will cheat you.  Men are wolves, wolves, wolves.  They’re to carry the clock up to your house for a quarter apiece.  But I’ll come on with you.  Got half a dollar?”

“Oh, yes,” laughed Mercy, much pleased that the old man was willing she should pay the porters.  “Oh, yes, I have my portemonnaie here,” holding it up.  “This is the cheapest clock ever sold, I think; and you are very good to let me pay the men.”

The old man looked at her with a keen, suspicious glance.

“Good? eh! good?  Why, ye didn’t think I was goin’ to give ye money, did ye?  Oh, no, no, no!  Not money.  Never give money.”

This was very true.  It would probably have cost him a severer pang to give away fifty cents than to have parted with the entire contents of the storehouse.  Mercy laughed aloud.

“Why, Mr. Wheeler,” she said, “you have given me just the same as money.  Such a clock as this must have cost a good deal, I am sure.”

“No, no, child!  It’s very different, different.  Clock wasn’t any use to me, wasn’t wuth any thin’.  Money’s of use, use, use.  Can’t have enough on’t.  People get it all away from you.  They’re wolves, wolves, wolves,” replied the old man, running along in advance of Mercy, and rapping one of the men who were carrying the clock, sharply on his shoulder.

“Keep your end up there! keep it up!  I won’t pay you, if you don’t carry your half,” he exclaimed.

It was a droll procession, and everybody turned to look at it:  the two ragged men carrying the quaint-fashioned old clock, from which the dust shook off at every jolt, revealing the carved scrolls and figures upon it:  following them, Mercy, with her expressive face full of mirth and excitement; and the old man, now ahead, now lagging behind, now talking in an eager and animated manner with Mercy, now breaking off to admonish or chastise the bearers of the clock.  The eccentric old fellow used his cane as freely as if it had been a hand.  There were few boys in town who had not felt its weight; and his more familiar acquaintances knew the touch of it far better than they knew the grip of his fingers.  It “saved steps,” he used to say; though of steps the old man seemed any thing but chary, as he was in the habit of taking them perpetually, without advancing or retreating, changing from one foot to the other, as uneasily as a goose does.

Stephen White happened to be looking out of the window, when this unique procession of the clock passed his office.  He could not believe what he saw.  He threw up the window and leaned out, to assure himself that he was not mistaken.  Mercy heard the sound, looked up, and met Stephen’s eye.  She colored violently, bowed, and involuntarily quickened her pace.  Her companion halted, and looked up to see what had arrested her attention.  When he saw Stephen’s face, he said,—­