After that I began to see; and when we went into it all and got change, and paid each chap exactly half of what I owed him, it turned out that Gideon was perfectly right, and there wasn't a farthing left over. Everybody was fairly well satisfied except the tuck-woman, but nobody seemed much obliged to me; and I couldn't help thinking that though Gideon had been awfully decent about it, and managed it all frightfully well, nevertheless a grown man would have managed it even better. Because, take my father's bankruptcy and look how jolly different that turned out to mine. I don't know what he paid in the pound, but I do know there was enough left over for him to buy a bottle of champagne, and for my mother to say "Thank God!" Whereas my bankruptcy appeared to have left me exactly where I was before, and there was nothing whatever left over to buy even a bottle of ginger beer.
I pointed this out to Gideon, and he said—
"Of course I don't know how much your father paid in the pound."
Presently I said, "I'm awfully obliged to you, Gideon, and I shall never forget how kind you have been. And I wonder if you'd mind adding to your fearful kindness by lending me a penny."
"What for?" said Gideon; "ginger beer?"
"No," I said; "for a stamp to write to my grandmother. I may tell you privately that she sent that pound out of her own money, and it was very sporting of her, and of course I must thank her."
Gideon didn't much like it, I could see; but at last he brought out the penny and entered it in his book.
"If you can pay it back by the end of the term I'll charge no interest," he said.
And just to show what luck Gideon always has, the very next Sunday, at church, I found a three-penny piece, doubtless dropped by somebody, so Gideon had his penny back in three days, and I went so far as to offer him a halfpenny interest, but he would not take it from me.
THE TIGER'S TAIL