The Little Shoeshine Boy

  He stood at the Men's Club door, kit in hand, eyes shining with a sunny smile and a hopeful heart. All he wanted was the chance to ply his services at the dinner meeting, shining the member's shoes for a quarter (or whatever they would give). It was a "member's only" club, so he put on his best smile and waited for whomever answered the door, hoping for a friendly face. "Dame Luck" smiled back at him that day, and he was soon descending into the din and smoke that was the norm for men's clubs at that time.
    The curly-haired boy was instinctively good at finding his customers, and knowing which of the men that were sitting around the many booths and tables would by inclined to have him shine their shoes, and he soon had his pants pocket jingling with the money he had earned.
    Surveying the room, the boy spotted a portly, well-dressed man, regaling his friends with a lively tale. "This",thought the boy, "is a big tipper if there ever was one!" He walked right to the man, and waited politely for a break in his story. "May I shine your shoes, sir?", he asked the man, quietly, yet with a firmness in his voice that belied his youth. The heavy-set man eyed the boy with a friendly, but stern gaze, and then pointed to his wingtips."What color are those shoes, lad", the man asked him. "Oxblood", the boy promptly replied. "Are you a clever
enough business man to carry such an odd color in your shoeshine box?", the gentleman inquired.  The little shoeshine boy quietly replied ,"Yes, I am!" "Then ,shine away !", the heavy-set, cheerful man invoked, and went back to telling his tale, taking care to keep his feet out where the boy could reach them.
      The boy went to work, and was doing a beautiful job on the expensive shoes, when he made a terrible error. Because the man was heavy, his ankles jutted out past the edge of his footwear, and the boy got deep-red shoe polish on the man's expensive white silk socks! He
could tell from the rest of his attire that this was a man who prided himself on his clothes, and so, with a sigh, the boy got up, and excused himself from the man's table, saying that he would shortly return to finish his job.
    Nearby the club there was an exclusive men's haberdashery and the boy went in and spent every cent he had earned to buy a pair of large white silk socks. With them in his hand, he returned to the club, and confronted his customer, the heavy-set man with the soiled socks.
  "Here, sir", he said as he handed the man the expensive socks,"I ruined yours, accidentally, so I went out and got you a new pair. You don't owe me for the "shine" either."  The jovial man took the socks from the boys outstretched hand, looked at them with a keen eye that told him just how much they had cost the lad, and he smiled . "Thank you, boy, you're an honest businessman!", the man observed,"Be sure to come back here for next week's dinner meeting!"
  That next week, the boy showed up at the men's club, and was promptly ushered into the
very room where he had lost his night's profits by his own hand. He couldn't help but feel a little reluctant to enter, given the circumstances of his previous encounter there.. Surely the news of his clumsiness had been retold, and his chances of making any sales seem dismal.
    The well-dressed man whom he had spent his money to appease was at the very same table as before, and signaled for the lad to come over. He was smiling broadly , as only a big man can it seems, and all eyes seemed to be on the two, man and boy as the shoeshine boy walked over to the table.
  "I have something for you," my fine young man!" the man, said, and produced from under his table, a finely-crafted oak box, with a leather strap and a hand-made foot pad. "A lad who is so fine a businessman as to know the value of his customers, should have a shoeshine box to match his heart!", the man said as he presented the boy with the prize . And with that , the man slid his feet out and said, "Please, allow me to be the first!"