O LIVER didn\'t go back to his native village. Mr. Kenyon sent on his trunk, and thus obviated the necessity. Our hero took up his quarters at a cheap hotel until, with the help of John Meadows, he obtained a room in St. Mark\'s Place. The room was a large square one, tolerably well furnished. The price asked was four dollars a week.

"That is rather more than I ought to pay just for a room," said Oliver.

"I\'ll tell you how you can get it cheaper," said John Meadows.

"How?"

"Take me for your room-mate. I\'ll pay a dollar and a half toward the rent."

Oliver hesitated, but finally decided to accept John\'s offer. Though his fellow-clerk was not altogether to his taste, it would prevent his feeling lonely, and he had no other acquaintances to select from.

"All right," he said.

"Is it a bargain?" said John, delighted. "I\'ll give my Bleecker Street landlady notice right off. Why, I shall feel like a prince here!"

"Then this is better than your room?"

"You bet! That\'s only big enough for a middling sized cat, while this――"

"Is big enough for two large ones," said Oliver, smiling.

"Yes, and a whole litter of kittens into the bargain. We\'ll have a jolly time together."

"I hope so."

"Of course," said John seriously, "when I get married that\'ll terminate the contract."

"Do you think of getting married soon?" asked Oliver, surprised and amused.

"I\'ll tell you about it," said John, with the utmost gravity. "Last month I had my fortune told."

"Well?"

"It was told by Mme. Catalina, the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter; so, of course, she wasn\'t a humbug."

"Does that make any difference—being the seventh daughter?"

"Of course it does. Well, she told me that I should marry a rich widow, and ever after live in luxury," said John, evidently elated by his prospects.

"Did you believe her?"

"Of course I did. She told things that I knew to be true about the past, and that convinced me she could foretell the future."

"Such as what?"

"She told me I had lately had a letter from a person who was interested in me. So I had. I got a letter from Charlie Cameron only a week before. Me and Charlie went to school together, so, of course, he feels interested in me."

"What else?"

"She said a girl with black eyes was in love with me."

"Is that true?"

John nodded complacently.

"Who is it?"

"I don\'t know her name, but I\'ve met her two or three times on the street, and she always looked at me and smiled."

"Struck with your looks, I suppose," suggested Oliver.

John stroked an incipient mustache and stole a look into the glass.

"Looks like it," he said.

"If she were only a rich widow you wouldn\'t mind cultivating her acquaintance?"

"I wish she were," said John thoughtfully.

"You haven\'t any widow in view, have you?"

"Yes, I have," said John, rather to Oliver\'s surprise.

"Who is it?"

"Her husband used to keep a lager-beer saloon on Bleecker Street, and now the widow carries it on. I\'ve enquired about, and I hear she\'s worth ten thousand dollars. Would you like to see her?"

"Very much," answered Oliver, whose curiosity was excited.

"Come along, then. We\'ll drop in and get a couple of glasses of something."

Following his guide, or rather side by side, Oliver walked round to the saloon.

"Does she know you admire her?" enquired Oliver.

"I don\'t," said John. "I admire her money."

"Would you be willing to sell yourself?"

"For ten thousand dollars? I guess I would. That\'s the easiest way of getting rich. It would take me two hundred years, at eight dollars a week, to make such a fortune."

They entered the saloon. Behind the counter stood a woman of thirty-five, weighing upward of two hundred pounds. She looked good-natured, but the idea of a marriage between her and John Meadows, a youth of nineteen, seemed too ridiculous.

"What will y............