“Hum!” ejaculated Sherry Trimm in a doubting tone. “Not much luxury, I am afraid.”
“A certain amount,” George answered quietly. “I have earned over ten thousand dollars during the last year and I have kept most of it.”
“Really!” exclaimed the other. “I did not know that literature was such a good thing. But you may not always earn as much, next year, or the year after.”
“That is unlikely, unless I break down. I do not know why that should happen to me.”
“You do not look like it,” said Sherry, eyeing George’s spare and vigorous frame, and his clear, brown skin.
“I do not feel like it,” said George.
“Well, look here. I will tell you what I will do. I have my own reasons for not giving you a house just now. But I will give Mamie just half as much as you make, right along. I suppose that is fair. I need not tell you that she will have everything some day.”
“You may give Mamie anything you like,” George answered indifferently. “I shall never ask questions. If I fall ill and cannot work for a long time together, you will have to support her, and my father will support me.”
“I daresay we could spare you a crust, my boy,” said Sherrington Trimm, laying his small hand upon George’s broad, bony shoulder and pushing him along. “I do not want to keep you any longer, if you have anything to do.”
George sauntered away in the direction of the garden, and Sherry Trimm went indoors to find his wife. Totty met him in the drawing-room, having just returned from a secret interview with her cook, in the interests of Sherry’s first dinner at home.