"Probably not less than four thousand dollars."
"Four thousand dollars!" said the lady with satisfaction. "Then you won't have to get a situation as clerk, even if you do fail. We can go to a stylish boarding-house. It won't be so bad as I thought."
"But I shan't be able to give you two thousand dollars a year for dress, as I have been accustomed to do."
"He is at a boarding-school on the Hudson. I expect him here this morning."
Scarcely had he said this when a servant opened the door and said, "Mr. Morton, there is a boy just come who says he is Mr. Raymond's son."
A moment later, and a boy of fourteen entered the room, and looked inquiringly at the two who were sitting at the table.
"Are you Robert Raymond?" inquired Mr. Morton.
"Yes, sir," said the boy, in manly tones. "How is my father?"
"Your father, my poor boy," said Paul Morton, in pretended sadness, "is, I regret to say, in a very precarious condition."
"Don't you think he will live?" asked Robert, anxiously.
"I fear not long. I am glad you have come. I will go up with you at once to your father's chamber. I hope you will look upon me as your sincere friend, for your father's sake. Maria, my dear, this is young Robert Raymond. Robert, this is Mrs. Morton."
Mrs. Morton gave her hand graciously to the boy. Looking upon him as her probable savior from utter ruin, she was disposed to regard him with favor.
Mr. Morton rose from the table, and motioning Robert to follow him, led the way to the sick man's chamber.
On the east side of the Bowery is a shabby street, which clearly enough indicates, by its general appearance, that it is never likely to be the resort of fashionable people. But in a large city there are a great many people who are not fashionable, and cannot aspire to fashionable quarters, and these must be housed as well as they may.
There stands in this street a shabby brick house of three stories. In the rear room of the upper story lived James Cromwell, the clerk in the druggist's store already referred to in our first chapter. The room was small and scantily furnished, being merely provided with a pine bedstead, painted yellow, and a consumptive-looking bed, a wooden chair, washstand, and a seven-by-nine mirror. There was no bureau, and, in fact, it would have been difficult to introduce one into a room of the dimensions.