"Well, if you are bent upon it, I will furnish you with money enough to take you there, and trust to you to repay me in good time."
"'Tis good of you, sir," I said, guessing, and not wrongly, I think, at whose persuasion he made that offer.
Then I was silent. The name "charity brat," bestowed on me years before by Cyrus Vetch, still rankled in my soul, and though, now that I look back upon it, there was nothing that need have wounded my pride in accepting the proffered loan, I was loath to be beholden to any man. Maybe my feeling on this point was complicated with another of which I was as yet hardly conscious; but certain it is that, after standing silent for a brief space, I said suddenly:
"I thank you heartily, sir, but I had liever earn the money."
"Pish, lad!" cried the gentleman. "'Tis easy to see you are not of laboring rank, and as for the money, I shall not break if I never see it again."
That was the worst argument he could have devised. My pride was up in arms now, in good sooth, and I said firmly:
"With your leave, sir, I will earn what money I need."
"Didst ever see such an obstinate youth?" said he testily, turning to his wife. "Well, as you will. I warrant you will soon sing another tune. Go and see my steward, one of the men will take you to him, and tell him what you know of husbandry; 'tis no more, I warrant, than you have learned out of Vergil's Georgics.
"Stay," he added, as I turned to go, "we must have a name for you. You can not be a mere cipher in my estate books."
"Call me Joe, sir," I said, he thinking me of my friend Punchard.