I did like, and it was two hours later when I suddenly heard an oily voice saying: "Why, it's half past nine,—James, you're not going to read all night, are you?" Then I came back to Rogers's Island with a bump, and saw the obnoxious face of Mr. Snider looking down at me. The Professor had left the room, though I had not noticed when he went.
"What is that book, James? Something improving, I trust?"
"It's a fine book," said I.
He took it and looked it over, making a clicking sound of disapproval with his tongue.
"How much better it would be," he observed, "to read some book of useful information, or something with a MORAL! Such a book as this TEACHES you nothing. Couldn't you find anything better?"
I was sorry that the Professor wasn't there, to tell him to shut up. I had no patience to stay and hear a book of brave adventure decried by this sanctimonious looking hum-bug,—whose mouth watered when he talked about old Fillmore and his ninety million dollars. Fillmore, so everybody said, was so stingy that he cut his own hair, and went around looking like a fright, rather than pay a barber. Worse than that, he was hated like fury by all the people who worked for him because he screwed their wages down to the lowest possible figure. But Mr. Snider thought him a great man, and boasted to me of knowing him within ten minutes of the time we met.
I told Mr. Snider that I was ready to go to bed, if he would show me where I was to sleep. He led me upstairs, past two or three rooms, to one in the rear. The floors were all bare, but the rooms had some furniture,—four-post beds, wash-stands, and one or two hair-cloth chairs. The bed in my room had a mattress and blankets, but no other bed-clothes. Mr. Snider bade me good-night, tried to shake hands with me—an attempt in which I foiled him—and softly departed down stairs.
After I was in bed I could hear the murmur of his voice below, as he talked with the Professor. Just as I was dropping off to sleep the voices grew suddenly louder for a moment or two, as if a door had opened somewhere.
"Maybe," I heard the Professor say, "but they'd never send a kid like that."
Mr. Snider answered something,—I could not distinguish the words.