“I’m afraid you’ll find it rather solitary, my boy,” said Stan’s father; “but it will be a fine lesson in business, and you’ll learn a great deal.”
“Very well, father,” said the lad again coldly.
“Hullo, young man!” cried his uncle. “What’s the meaning of this? You ought to be jumping for joy at the thought of going to a new place, and you look as if you don’t want to go,” said Uncle Jeff.
“I don’t, uncle,” said the lad.
“And pray why?” said his father.
“Because you are going to send me away, father, as you don’t think it is safe for me here; and I don’t want to leave you both in trouble.”
There was a dead silence, and the brothers exchanged glances, the eyes of both looking dark, before the senior spoke, holding out his hand to grasp that of his son.
“On my word of honour, no, Stan,” he said in a voice slightly affected by the emotion he felt. “Indeed, it is because we are—your uncle and I—in a difficulty about responding to our Mour manager’s demand. Your uncle was to go, but after last night’s attack it would be impossible for him to leave me here alone.”
Stan gazed sharply from his father to his uncle and back again, with doubt shining out of his eyes; then he said in an eager, excited way:
“Then it isn’t because I seemed cowardly last night, father?”