“Did you save no money from my brother’s salary? I understand he was gettin’ big money from Sutton’s—four hundred pounds a year as master—for a considerable time before he was drowned.”
Mrs. McKenzie winced. “I saved nothing,” she murmured.
“So!” The prosecutor’s voice grated on. “Ye were penniless when Alec went? Aye! Ye spent what he earned like watter. Ye lived in a villa and in a style fitted for people with an income twice what Alec was gettin’. I ken all aboot it, for I made enquiries. And noo ye’re keepin’ a lodgin’-hoose and comin’ tae me tae help pit yer son through tae become an architect.” He paused and leaned further back in his chair. “Why should I be asked to do this?”
“Why?” Mrs. McKenzie repeated the word dazedly. “Why? Well, I thought as you were Alec’s brother you’d be glad to do something for his son!”
“So!” Donald stood inwardly furious at the manner in which this dead-souled man was tongue-lashing his mother. “So! The lesson ye have learned—or ought to have learned—hasny driven the high-falutin’ notions oot yer head! Ye think because the lad can draw a bit that he should be an architect. It’s a wonder tae me ye didny want him tae be an artist and ask me tae send him tae Paris!” McKenzie’s eyebrows elevated sarcastically and he continued. “Madam! Your coming to me for such a thing is jist as big a piece o’ presumption as if the mother of yin of those pavement-artists came tae me on the same mission! Neither you nor yer son have any more claim upon my charity than they would have! If he could write poetry, ye’d want me to help him be a poet, I s’pose? Now, look here, madam!” He tapped the table with a pencil. “You’re in no position to have such notions! It was your high-and-mighty ideas that placed ye in the way ye are to-day! If your boy is clever at drawing, pit him tae work with a hoose painter or a sign painter. Let him get tae work. He’s auld enough!” Then almost fiercely to Donald. “How old are ye, boy?”
“Fifteen last October, sir!” answered the boy calmly.
“Old enough tae go to sea!” growled David McKenzie. “Would ye go to sea, boy, after what happened to yer father?”
“I would,” answered Donald wonderingly, “if I knew that mother was provided for.”
Mrs. McKenzie interposed. “I wouldn’t allow him to go to sea!”
The other took no notice, but reached for a pad of paper. “Give me yer address,” he grated. “I’ll see what I can do for ye, but, I’ll say this, that I’ll not be makin’ an architect oot of that boy there. You may go!”