Bram was quite acute enough to understand that this was a sneer.
“You mean that I’m what you and your friends call a prig, Mr. Christian?” he said quite unaffectedly, and without any sign of shame or regret. “Well, I suppose I am. But you don’t allow for the difference between us at starting. To get up to where you stand from where I used to be, one must be a bit of a prig, don’t you think?”
“Perhaps so. I think you may be trusted to know your own business, Elshaw. You’re one of the men that get on. It won’t do you any harm on the way up if you leave off chopping firewood in your shirt-sleeves for people who don’t think any the better of you for it.”
Bram, who had let himself be led up the hill, stopped short.
“She doesn’t think any the worse of me for doing any little thing I can to help her,” said he in a muffled voice.
Christian began to laugh.
“She? You mean Claire. Oh, no, no, she does justice to everybody, bless her dear little heart! I was thinking of our rascally friend, her father. You know very well that he uses his daughter as a means for getting all he can out of everybody. I hope you’ve not been had by the old ruffian, Elshaw?”
“No, Mr. Christian; no, I haven’t,” answered Bram hastily. “That is, not to an extent that matters.”
“Ah, ha! That means you have been had for half-crowns, for instance?” As Bram moved uneasily, Chris laughed again. “Of course, it is no affair of mine; I’m quite sure you can see through our frivolous friend as well as anybody else. But if, as you say, you have been dismissed, why, I advise you not to try to get reinstated.”
Now, this advice troubled Bram exceedingly. It was excellent of its kind, no doubt; but he asked himself whether the man who was so keenly alive to the disadvantages of even an acquaintance with the Birons could really be ready to form an alliance which must bring the burden of the needy elderly gentleman upon him for life. His feelings upon the subject were so keen that they would not permit him to temporize and to choose his words and his opportunity. Quite suddenly he blurted out—