Len slowly shook his head, with a grimace of distaste.
"No, I don't think!" he remarked. "Not fer mine, you bet! I stays alongside my pore ol' Ma, here in Western Austrylia."
Mr. George adjusted his eyeglasses severely.
"Your mother is neither poor nor old," he said coldly.
"I never!" broke out Lennie.
"And this country, thank God, is called Australia, not Austrylia. When you open your mouth you give proof enough of your need for education. I should like to hear different language in your mouth, my son, and see different ideas working in your head."
Lennie, rather pale and nervous, stared with wide eyes at him.
"You never—" he said. "You never ketch me talkin' like Jack Grant, not if y' skin me alive." And he shifted from one foot to the other.
"I wouldn't take the trouble to skin you, alive or dead. Your skin wouldn't be worth it. But come. You're an intelligent boy. You need education. You need it. Your nature needs it, child. Your mother ought to see that. Your nature needs you to be educated, well-educated. You'll be wasted afterwards—you will. And you'll repent it. Mark me, you'll repent it, when you're older, and your spirit, which should be trained and equipped, is as clumsy and half-baked as any other cornseed's. You'll be a fretful, uneasy, wasted man, you will. Your mother ought to see that. You'll be a half-baked, quarter-educated bush-whacker, instead of a well-equipped man."
Len looked wonderingly at his mother. But she still sat like an obstinate martyr at the stake, and gave him no sign.