CHAPTER VIII.
MY THIRD PERIL "Mr.Purvis" took his pay in salts and stayed with us until my first great adventure cut him off.

It came one July day when I was in my sixteenth year.

He behaved badly, and I as any normal boy would have done who had had my schooling in the candle-light.

We had kept Grimshaw from our door by paying interest and the sum of eighty dollars on the principal.

It had been hard work to live comfortably and carry the burden of debt.