"Not much. My provender," said Mr. Sorber, "is one thing that I'm mighty particular about. I feeds my lions first; then Bill Sorber's next best friend is his own stomach—yes, Ma'am!
"The cook tent and the cooks go ahead of the show. For instance, right after supper the tent is struck and packed, and if we're traveling by rail, it goes right aboard the first flat. If we go by road, that team gets off right away and when we catch up to it in the morning, it's usually set up on the next camping ground and the coffee is a-biling.
"It ain't no easy life we live; but it ain't no dog's life, neither. And how a smart, bright boy like this here nevvy of mine should want to run away from it——"
"Did ye iver think, sir," interposed the cobbler, softly, "that mebbe there was implanted in the la-ad desires for things ye know nothin' of?"
"Huh!" grunted Sorber, balancing a mouthful of beans on his knife to the amazement of Dot, who had seldom seen any person eat with his knife.
"Lit me speak plainly, for 'tis a plain man I am," said the Irishman. "This boy whom ye call nephew——?"
"And he is," Sorber said.
"Aye. But he has another side to him that has no Sorber to it. 'Tis the O'Neil side. It's what has set him at his books till he is the foinest scholar in the Milton Schools, bar none. Mr. Marks told me himself 'twas so."
This surprised Neale and the girls for they had not known how deep was the Irishman's interest in his protégé.
"He's only half a Sorber, sir. Ye grant that?"