“Oh, but Taff is such a solemn old gentleman with his stick-up collar and his cane that he ought to take care of me, father!”
“Perhaps he ought,” said Mr Temple; “but I tell you to take care of him.”
“All right, father! I will.”
“By the way, Dick, that lad Marion seems a very decent fellow.”
“Decent, father! Why, he’s a splendid chap. He has rough hands and wears fisherman’s clothes and does hard work, but he has been to a big grammar-school in Devonshire somewhere, and he knows a deal more Greek than I do, and quite as much Latin.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes, that he does. It made Arthur stare, for he was coming the great man over Will Marion, and being very condescending.”
“Yes, it is a way Master Arthur has,” muttered Mr Temple frowning.
“I said to Taff that he ought not to, but he would. I like Will Marion. Josh says he’ll be owner of a lot of fishing-boats and nets some day when his uncle dies; but he says Will thinks he would like to make his own way in the world, and that it is very foolish of him.”
“Oh, that’s what Josh thinks, is it?”