“Got no money, my lad? What a shame, when half of all this here ought to be yourn. Oh dear, what a cruel thing it seems! I’m very sorry for you, Mas’ Don, that I am, ’specially when I think of what a fine dashing young fellow like—”
“Don’t humbug, Mike.”
“Nay, not I, my lad; ’tarn’t likely. You know it’s true enough. You’re one of the young fellows as is kep’ out of his rights. I know what I’d do if I was you.”
“What?”
“Not be always rubbing my nose again a desk. Go off to one o’ them bu’ful foreign countries as I’ve told you of, where there’s gold and silver and dymons, and birds jus’ like ’em; and wild beasts to kill, and snakes as long as the main mast. Ah! I’ve seen some sights in furren abroad, as what I’ve told you about’s like nothing to ’em. Look here, Mas’ Don, shall I stop on for an hour and tell you what I’ve seen in South America?”
“No, no, Mike; my uncle doesn’t like you to be with me.”
“Ah, and well I knows it. ’Cause I tells you the truth and he feels guilty, Mas’ Don.”
“And—and it only unsettles me,” cried the boy with a despairing look in his eyes. “Get on with your work, and I must get on with mine.”
“Ah, to be sure,” said the scoundrel with a sneer. “Work, work, work. You and me, Mas’ Don, is treated worse than the black niggers as cuts the sugar-canes down, and hoes the ’bacco in the plantations. I’m sorry for you.”
Lindon Lavington thrust his little account book in his breast, and walked hurriedly in the direction taken by the man Jem, entering directly after a low warehouse door, where rows of sugar-hogsheads lay, and there was a murmur and buzz made by the attracted flies.