“I haven’t much respect for mine,” said Rupert; “I’ve had twenty-two too many—just twenty-two.”
“’Scusin’ me sayin’ it, sah, but dat ain’t no way ter talk. A man boun’ to have some dispect for his birfday—he boun’ to! Birfdays gotter be took keer on. Whar’s a man when he runs out of ’em?”
“He’d better run out of them before he runs out of everything else,” said Rupert. “Matt, I’ve just made two dollars this month.”
He looked at the old man with a restless appeal in his big, deer-like eyes.
“I’m very sorry, Matt,” he said, “I’m terribly sorry, but you know—we can’t go on.”
Uncle Matthew looked down at the grass with a reflective air.
“Marse Rupert, did you never heah nothin’ ’bout your Uncle Marse Thomas De Willoughby?”
Rupert was silent a moment before he answered, but it was not because he required time to search his memory.
“Yes,” he said, and then was silent again. He had heard of poor Tom of the big heart from his mother, and there had been that in her soft speech of him which had made the great, tender creature very real. Even in his childhood his mother had been his passion, as he had been hers. Neither of them had had others to share their affection, and they were by nature creatures born to love. His first memory had been of looking up into the soft darkness of the tender eyes which were always brooding over him. He had been little more than a baby when he had somehow known that they were very sorrowful, and had realised that he loved them more because of their sorrow. He had been little older when he found out the reason of their sadness, and from that time he had fallen into the habit of watching them, and knowing their every look. He always remembered the look they wore when she spoke of Tom De Willoughby, and it had been a very touching one.
“Yes,” he said to Uncle Matt, “I have heard of him.”