"I shouldn't wonder," pursued Mrs. Dobbs, "if he put you in the way of getting permanent employment—supposing you please him. He might get you a place out in South America with his son. Young Joshua is in a great way of business there, I'm told. Would you go if you had the chance?" she asked suddenly, looking at Owen with a searching gaze.
"Undoubtedly," he replied at once.
"And you wouldn't mind being—being banished like from England?"
"Mind? Oh, well, of course I should prefer a thousand a year and a villa on the Thames; but a fellow who has been an idler up to four and twenty must take any chance of earning something, and be thankful for it."
"That's right." Mrs. Dobbs drew a long breath of relief.
"It would only be for a year or two; I should come back," added Owen wistfully.
Then he shook hands and went away, and Mrs. Dobbs and her grand-daughter were left to discuss the news he had told them. May chatted away cheerfully, even gaily. When Mr. Weatherhead arrived the subject was talked over again. Jo's pleasure in the prospect opening before Mr. Rivers was somewhat tempered by his sense of the incongruity involved in "a gentleman like that, brimful of learning, and belonging to the old landed gentry," being under the orders of Joshua Bragg!
"There's no contradiction at all, Jo, if you look at it fairly," said Mrs. Dobbs. "Mr. Bragg will command where he has a right to—that is, in matters that he knows better than Mr. Rivers, for all his book-learning. It isn't as if Joshua wanted to teach the young man how to be a gentleman. I don't say it's not a good thing to be a gentleman, but it ain't exactly a paying business nowadays, if ever it was, which I doubt."
"Ah, more's the pity!" said Jo, shaking his head.
"Why, if I was a gentleman—or a lady—I shouldn't agree with you there, Jo. If gentlehood don't mean something above and beyond what can be paid for, 'tis a poor business. It seems to me just as pitiful for gentry to expect money's worth for their old family, high breeding, and fine manners, as it is for the grand workers of the world to grumble because they can't have power over the past, as well as the present and the future. Mr. Bragg ain't one of that sort. You'll never catch him inventing a family crest, or painting wild beasts on his carriage."