"Will you take the spear, or won't you?" replied Bart, mimicking him with great effect.
"Have you heard from Henry lately?" asked Uncle Jonah.
"A few days ago," answered Bart, who turned moodily away like a peevish child angered with half sleep, and a pang from the thrust he had received.
"Henry is the most ambitious young man I ever knew," said the Doctor;
"I fear he may never realize his aspirations."
"Why not?" demanded Bart, with sudden energy. "What is there that my brother Henry may not hope to win, I would like to know? He will win it or die in the effort."
"He will not, if he lives a thousand years," said Young, annoyed at
Bart's mimicking him. "It ain't in him."
"What ain't in him, Old Testament?" demanded Bart, with asperity.
"The stuff. I've sounded him; it ain't there!"
"You've sounded him! Just as you are now sounding this bottomless pond, with a tow string six feet long, having an angle worm at one end, and an old hairy curmudgeonly grub at the other."
"There, Brother Young," said Uncle Jonah, "stop before worse comes."