Mr. Vernon nodded.
"There's not much in it," said Dick, with charming candor. "We've never set eyes on any of her swell connections, and I don't think she's ever heard from them since the smash."
"What smash?" asked Mr. Vernon, with only faint interest.
"Didn't I tell you? Left the part of Hamlet out of the play! Why, father added a patent coffeepot to the roaster, and lost all his money—or nearly all. Then he died. And we came here, and——There you are, sir; that's the story; and the moral is, 'Let well alone'; or 'Be content with your roaster, and touch not the pot.' Sounds like the title of a teetotal tract, doesn't it?"
"And you are at school, I suppose? No, you are too old for that."
"Thanks. I was trying not to feel offended," said Dick. "Nothing hurts a boy of my age like telling him he isn't a man. No; I've left school, and I'm supposed to be educated; but it's the thinnest kind of supposition. I don't fancy they teach you much at most schools. They didn't teach me anything at mine except cricket and football."
"Oxford, Cambridge?" suggested the invalid, leaning on his elbow, and looking at the boy absently.
"Wouldn't run to it," said Dick. "Mamma said I must begin the world—sounds as if it were a loaf of bread or an orange. I should have 'begun it' long ago if it were. The difficulty seems to be where to begin. I'm supposed to have a taste for engineering—once made a steam engine out of an empty meat tin. It didn't work very well, and it blew up and burst the kitchen window; but that's a detail. So I'm waiting, like Mr. Micawber, for 'something to turn up' in the engineering line. I take in the engineering paper, and answer all the advertisements; but nothing comes of it. Quite comfortable? Shall I shake up the pillow, sir? I know how to do it, for I've seen Nell do 'em for mamma."
"No; thanks, very much. I'm quite comfortable. If you really are desirous of taking any trouble, you might get me a sheet of note paper and an envelope."
"To say nothing of a pen, some ink, and blotting paper," said Dick, rising leisurely.