I have been thus particular in describing the two rival establishments because Hiram Meeker is to enter one of them.  The reader will naturally suppose there can be little doubt which, and he has a right to exhibit surprise on learning that Hiram decided in favor of Mr. Jessup.  I say HIRAM decided.  His father preferred that he should go with the Smiths.  His mother was of the same opinion, but she permitted her son, who now was very capable of acting for himself, to persuade her that Jessup’s was the place for him:  ’More going on—­greater variety of business—­much more enterprise,’ and consequently more to be learned.  It would be difficult to follow closely the train of reasoning which led Hiram to insist so perseveringly in favor of Mr. Jessup.  For the reasons he gave were on the surface, while those which really decided him were keen and subtle, based on a shrewd appreciation of the position of the two merchants, and his probable relation to one or the other.  With the Smiths, Hiram saw no room for any fresh exhibition of talent or enterprise; in the other place he saw a great deal.

Once decided on, he was speedily settled in his new abode, where he formed a part of the household of the proprietor, together with the head-clerk, a ’cute fellow of five and twenty, who was reported to be as ‘keen as a razor.’  It was evident Mr. Jessup valued him highly, from the respect he always paid to his advice and from his giving up so much of the management of the business to him.  Besides, it was rumored he was engaged to Mr. Jessup’s oldest daughter, a handsome, black-eyed girl of eighteen, a little too old for the ‘meridian’ of Hiram; but who, with her mother, was on excellent terms with the Meeker family.  The name of the head-clerk was Pease—­Jonathan Pease; but he always wrote his name J. Pease.  There was also a boy, fourteen years old, called Charley, who boarded at home.  This, with Mr. Benjamin Jessup, constituted the force at the ‘cash store.’

Hiram had taken the place of a pale, milk-and-water-looking youth, with weak lungs, who had been obliged to quit on account of poor health.  This youth had been entirely under the control of Pease, so much so that he dared not venture an opinion about his own soul or body till he was satisfied Pease thought just so.  All this helped add to the importance of the head-clerk, so that even Mr. Jessup unconsciously felt rather nervous about differing with him.  Indeed, Pease was fast becoming master of the establishment.  This Hiram Meeker knew perfectly well before he entered it.

When Pease ascertained that Hiram was about to come there as clerk, without his advice being asked, he regarded it as an invasion of his rights.  He did not hesitate to speak his mind on the subject to Mr. Jessup.  He tried strongly to dissuade him from taking a gentleman-clerk, and declared it would require an extra boy to wait on him and another to correct his blunders.  It was of no use; Mr. Jessup