"Yes, but you see "—with his usual seriousness explained Nelson, "that letter may come any day, and I want to be on hand to get it."
"Of course," nodded Frank gravely, but he felt that poor Nelson's hopes were like those of the man whose ship never came in.
While his young assistants were thus earning good pocket money and Frank was accumulating more and more capital daily, he kept up a powerful thinking.
A limitless field of endeavor seemed spread out before him. The handling of the salvage stock had been a positive education to him.
"I see where the Riverton hardware man failed," Frank said to himself many times, "and I think I know how I can succeed."
Frank packed up the contents of the zinc box in a satchel with a couple of clean collars, cuffs and handkerchiefs, and consulted a railway timetable.
"If I take the train that goes through Greenville at three o'clock in the morning, mother," he said, "I arrive at the city at exactly ten o'clock. Just the hour for business."
"Well, then, after supper you lay down and sleep till two o'clock. I will busy myself putting up some more of the needles," suggested Mrs
