“I’m much obliged to you for my bedroom, sir. It was very cold last night.”
His words and respectful manner mollified the gardener a little.
“You have no business here!” he returned.
“I know that, sir; but what is a boy to do?” answered Clare. “I wasn’t hurting anything, and it was so cold we might have died if we had slept out of doors.”
“That’s no business of mine!”
“But it is of mine,” rejoined Clare; “—except you think a boy that can’t get work ought to commit suicide. If he mustn’t do that, he can’t always help doing what people with houses don’t like!”
The gardener was not a bad sort of fellow, and perceived the truth in what the boy said.
“That’s always the story!” he replied, however. “Can’t get work! No idle boy ever could get work! I know the sort of you—well!”
“Would you mind giving me a chance?” returned Clare eagerly. “I wouldn’t ask much wages.”
“You wouldn’t, if you asked what you was worth!”