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 that his father was to go into business for himself.

The boy sat up straight. "Going to open a store, Dad?"

"Yes. I've leased one of those new Washington Avenue places; I'll open as a men's furnisher. I've sold goods for other people long enough. I'm going to try my hand at selling for myself."

The announcement had an important sound, and the boy forgot the hurt he had been nursing. He had always envied boys whose fathers owned stores. Dolf Muller's father conducted a bakery, and Dolf's crumby pockets were always filled with cakes that he dispensed lavishly. Bill Harrison's father ran a grocery, and Bill never lacked for apples, and raisins, and prunes. Once they had all looked at a raw prune through a magnifying glass, and the glass had revealed walking things hidden from the naked eye. They had eaten prunes that day with the feeling that they were doing a desperate and hazardous deed. He remembered, too, the respect that had gone out to Bill the day he had taken them behind the counter and had let them dip their hands into the brine of the pickle barrel and fish about for the largest pickles. These things had the mark of power and affluence.

And now his own father was to open a store! He gave the news to Bill and to Dolf.

"I wish my father had a clothing store," Dolf