“Stealing a holiday,—the old story,” muttered he. “Are you doing anything now?”
“No, sir. I have unfortunately nothing to do.”
“Why not go on the quay then, and turn coal-heaver? I 'd not eat bread of another man's earning when I could carry a sack of coals. Do you understand that?”
“Perhaps I do, sir; but I'm scarcely strong enough to be a coal-porter.”
“Sell matches, then,—lucifer matches!” cried he, with a bang of his hand on the table, “or be a poster.”
“Oh, Tom!” cried my aunt, who saw that I had grown first red, and then sickly pale all over.
“As good men as he have done both. But here's the dinner, and I suppose you must have your share of it.”
I was in no mood to resent this invitation, discourteous as it was, for I was in no mood to resent anything. I was crushed and humbled to a degree that I began to regard my abject condition as a martyr might his martyrdom.
The meal went over somewhat silently; little was spoken on any side. A half-jocular remark on the goodness of my appetite was the only approach to a pleasantry. My uncle drank something which by the color I judged to be port, but he neither offered it to my aunt nor myself. She took water, and I drank largely of beer, which once more elicited a compliment to me on my powers of suction.
“Better have you for a week than a fortnight, lad,” said my uncle, as we drew round the fire after dinner.