Then the boys began examining their stock, finding beautiful things, such as they had admired from outside shop-windows, but never believed they should really own.
When Paul came in alone, half an hour later--for he was too eager to know what his friends thought of their store to be able to wait any longer--he found the newly-made proprietors in a state of delight bordering almost on frenzy. They shook him by the hands, hugged him, and once Johnny looked as if he would have kissed him had it not been that he was a little ashamed to do so, while they kept asking him over and over again if he was quite sure that his father had really given them that entire stock of goods all for their very own.
When Paul told them that his father had spoken of doing some such thing as this the first night that he had found him, after hearing the story of what the two had done for his son, and that the money had been paid over that very morning in his presence, they became fully assured of their good-fortune.
Johnny, by Ben's direction, started down town to inform their friends of their magnificent gift, and to invite them all up to look the property over; which invitation, it is almost unnecessary to say, was accepted at once.
During the greater portion of that day the store was filled with such a crowd of newsboys and boot-blacks as was never seen in that vicinity before, and the other merchants looked out in alarm, as if they feared that a riot was in progress.
Dickey was almost as delighted as the proprietors themselves at this magnificent gift; but Mopsey did not hesitate to say that, from what he had seen of Mr. Weston, he fully expected that he would have been sensible enough to have purchased a theatre; and the author also intimated that some folks did not recognize genius when they saw it, or he would have been both proprietor and manager of a theatre, in the place of Ben and Johnny being installed behind the counter of a periodical depot.
Paul had his father's permission to remain at the store all day, for he was as much delighted with it as were the new owners, and he received quite as much attention from the visitors as the goods did, all seeming to think him a curiosity, and all equally certain that they would have cared for him as willingly as Ben and Johnny did had he met them first.