Mr. Bright shook his head.
“I have hoped, until now; all hope is useless—that is”—and the man paused.
“What, father? What is the chance?” asked the boy eagerly.
“It is hardly worth considering, Oliver, it is so small. We had better face the truth, bitter as it is.”
Oliver drew a long breath. To endure poverty is no pleasant thing, especially when one has once been rich. The boy was so completely taken aback that for a moment he did not say a word.
“I should have spoken of this before and prepared you for its coming,” went on Mr. Bright; “but day after day I trusted that matters would take a better turn and all would be right. I am to blame there.”
“Never mind; you did what you thought was right,” responded Oliver as bravely as he could. “But I wish I had known; I would not have laid so many plans for the future. I might have got ready to go to work instead.”
“I have not yet decided what I shall do when we leave this home. I have been out of active business so long that I suppose it will come hard to resume it again. Perhaps I will go back to the book business, that is, if I can find a suitable opening.”
Oliver looked at his father in dismay. For a man in Mr. Bright’s state of health to go back to active life after a retirement of eight years would be hard indeed.
“I wish I knew something of the book business; I’d sail right in and work for both of us,” he declared with considerable vim. “But I don’t know the first thing about business of any kind,” he added with a sigh.