Living On Hope

"Why do I try tomakesuch a bluff?" said a ten-dollar-a-week Wall street clerk the other afternoon, as he alighted from a coupe in front of the Fifth Avenue hotel and sauntered up Broadway with the air of a millionaire. "Why, my dear fellow, for the simple reason that appearances count for everything nowadays, and the best way to get rieh, if you are poor, is to look rieh. To begin with, my salary is 520 per year. Out of an income of $1,200 which my mother has she allows me $500 more; total, $1,020; and there I am. I dress and appear like a young man who had five times that much, and my employers, who are the only persons who really know what my salary is, are of the opinión that I have rich relatives in Boston who niake me a handsome allowance. "They considerme a very industrious chap, I can teil you, for desüïng to work at all, and the chances are that they will increase my salary and give me a place of more importance very shortly. To keep up appearance I have to practice a great deal of self denial. I live in a f urnished room in a house occupied by a private family. They don't associate with their neighbors, so no one but ïnyself is aware of the fact that it costs me but three dollars per weet. In the mormng 1 leed on roüs and milk, wliich I cai-ry into my room in an alligator skin satehel, and this costs but ten cents. The satehel, you know, might contain anytliing irom my bank stock to silk underwear, so far as any one could teil. It was a great investment. "I always go well dressed to the office and dur! )g theday make it a point to be seen strolling through Delmonico's downtown restaurant about lunch time, although I never in my life lunched there exeept when invited. In the afternoon I make it a point at least once a week to take a cab in front of the office and drive part of the way up town. This adds a tone to my conduct, and some of the other clerks who get frwice my salary think that I was bom with a sil ver spoon in my mouth. Then in the evening I manage to loiter for a while in front of some of the theaters or be seen in the corridors of the swell uptown hotels attired in evening dress. "I bought the dress suit second hand for seventeen dollars, and it has served me nobly. Of course I meet my employers occasionally and I know that a sharp lookout is kept on my accounts at the office; but, Lord bless you! I wouldn't steal a cent for a thousand dollars. I rely solely upon a good appearance and honesty to advance my prospects. Once in a great while I dine at a flrst class restaurant, but it is very rarely. "What am I hunting for? Well, I expect by and by to get asked to my employer's house to dinner. That is when I have been promoted in the office. Then I will meet some rich girl and make it the business of my life to make her fall in love with me. I'll marry her in a hurry and my fortune is