one of his knees through them. He pinned up the rent as well as he could, and went to his boarding place, after school, with a countenance looking almost as forlorn as his trousers. He was boarding with a Mrs. Stiles at the time, a motherly kind of a woman, possessing considerable sharpness of intellect.

“See what a plight I am in, Mrs. Stiles!” showing the rent in his pants.

“I see; how did you do that?” said Mrs. Stiles.

“Blundering about, as usual,” James replied. “I hardly know what I shall do.”

“What! so scared at a rent,” the good lady exclaimed; “that’s nothing.”

“It is a good deal, when it is all the pantaloons a fellow has,” answered James. “This is all the suit I possess in the world, poor as it is.”

“It’s good enough, and there’s enough of it as long as it lasts,” replied the good woman; “make the best of things.”

“I think I could make the best of an extra suit,” responded James; “but this making the best of a single suit, and a flimsy one at that, is asking too much.” He said this humorously.

“Well,” continued Mrs. Stiles,“I can darn that rent so that it will be just as good as new, if not better. That’s easy enough done.”

“On me?” asked James, in his innocence.

“Mercy, no! When you go to bed, one of the boys will bring down your trousers, and I’ll mend them. In the morning no one will know that you met with such an accident. You mustn’t let such small matters trouble you. You’ll forget all about them when you become President.”

James’s wardrobe was not much more elaborate at this time than it was when he began attending school at Chester. He had no overcoat nor underclothing, preferring to expose his body to the cold rather than rob his mind of knowledge.

At the close of his school in Warrensville James returned home, where an unexpected change in his programme awaited him.