Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/305

Rh places of amusement, many of the same places of improvement, and tramped together miles upon miles many of the same sidewalks in earnest conversation. It was Robert Barton who first told the sailor-boy how to hold a fork, how to use a napkin, how to approach a table in a restaurant, what to look for upon the menu, what to eat. It was Robert Barton who first outfitted him in proper civilian clothes. It was the clergyman, too, who started him into the night schools, and when his small roll of money had been exhausted and before the "Ellen T. Robinson" had returned him anything in the way of funds, saved his new young friend from feeling himself an object of charity by giving him manuscripts to copy on the typewriter—old sermons he wanted preserved and properly filed.

Later it was Robert Barton who discovered the invaluable Professor Heckelman. This was not, however, until after the clergyman had undertaken his duties in his new post in the San Francisco church, which had discovered the young Bostonian before he had been many months in the city. Robert Barton's mother had joined her son, as soon as possible after he had decided to accept the post, and it was she who then proceeded to take Nathan "under her wing," as she put it.

Robert Barton had been in doubt as to just how his mother would feel in regard to his curious young secretary, as he liked to call Nathan, who was fast becoming a valuable help to him.

"He's still pretty unused to high collars, and drawing-rooms, Mother. But he's useful to me in a hundred ways, and he needs most just now what a home