“What kind of work do they do?” Lem asked. He had eaten the egg and was eating the crisped bacon—Harvey always had the best bacon.
“They don't do no work; not the kind of work you mean,” Harvey said. “They just work to be a saint. They work to be good. Some of 'em has a sort of sideline like I'm goin' to have. I'm goin' to work to be kind to stray dogs.”
Lem finished his bacon. His freckled face set in firm resolution.
“I'm goin' to stay here an' help you be a saint, pop,” he said. “I'm goin' to be a saint, too. I can be a young one, can't I?”
“I'll be eternally dod-basted if—” Harvey began angrily, but he remembered himself. “No, Lem,” he said with forced gentleness, “that ain't in my plans. I can't let you do it. Not now. You 're too young yet. You go back to your aunt an' be a good boy, an' when I get her all paid off an' get you out of pawn, maybe I 'll see about it. After-while. In a year or two, maybe. Just yet awhile I got to suffer alone an' in silence, as you may say. You go back to your aunt like a good boy an' I 'll give you a dollar.”
“I want to stay here.”
“You can't stay here.”
“Lemme see the dollar, then.”
Harvey produced a dollar, a big, silver one, and Lem took it. He had not taken off his hat, so he did not have to put it on. “I 'll go back,” he said as he paused at the door, “but I won't stay. She's mean.”
Harvey had turned his own egg and bacon on to the plate Lem had just emptied.