A Good Name

Timothy Shay Arthur ,known as T.S. Arthur, was a popular 19th-century American author.

It is a story about two boys — Jacob Peters and Ralph Glipin.  One evening they are passing along the street near an oyster-cellar. Suddenly one of them offers having some oysters, but his friend rejects a suggestion, he does not want to go down there. In this place people sell liquor, that's why Ralph do not wish to be seen in such a place!  Why does Ralph reject his friend's suggestion to go in the oyster-cell? Can their appearance somehow influence on their life? This story plunges the reader in the atmosphere of pre-Civil War Times in America and shows the  values, beliefs, and habits of middle-class life.