The Rev.Mr.Ware found Levi Gorringe's law-office readily enough, but its owner was not in.He probably would be back again, though, in a quarter of an hour or so, the boy said, and the minister at once decided to wait.
Theron was interested in finding that this office-boy was no other than Harvey--the lad who brought milk to the parsonage every morning.He remembered now that he had heard good things of this urchin, as to the hard work he did to help his mother, the Widow Semple, in her struggle to keep a roof over her head; and also bad things, in that he did not come regularly either to church or Sunday-school.The clergyman recalled, too, that Harvey had impressed him as a character.
"Well, sonny, are you going to be a lawyer?" he asked, as he seated himself by the window, and looked about him, first at the dusty litter of old papers, pamphlets, and tape-bound documents in bundles which crowded the stuffy chamber, and then at the boy himself.
Harvey was busy at a big box--a rough pine dry-goods box which bore the flaring label of an express company, and also of a well-known seed firm in a Western city, and which the boy had apparently just opened.He was lifting from it, and placing on the table after he had shaken off the sawdust and moss in which they were packed, small parcels of what looked in the fading light to be half-dried plants.
"Well, I don't know--I rather guess not," he made answer, as he pursued his task."So far as I can make out, this wouldn't be the place to start in at, if I WAS going to be a lawyer.A boy can learn here first-rate how to load cartridges and clean a gun, and braid trout-flies on to leaders, but I don't see much law laying around loose.
Anyway," he went on, "I couldn't afford to read law, and not be getting any wages.I have to earn money, you know."Theron felt that he liked the boy."Yes," he said, with a kindly tone; "I've heard that you are a good, industrious youngster.I daresay Mr.Gorringe will see to it that you get a chance to read law, and get wages too.""Oh, I can read all there is here and welcome,"the boy explained, stepping toward the window to decipher the label on a bundle of roots in his hand, "but that's no good unless there's regular practice coming into the office all the while.THAT'S how you learn to be a lawyer.