“Then you must try to take it like a man,” said Ben, who could think of no other plan by which the boy might soothe his feelings. “It hain't half so bad as it might be, an' you must try to keep a stiff upper lip, even if it does seem hard at first.”
This keeping a stiff upper lip in the face of all the trouble he was having was all very well to talk about, but Toby could not reduce it to practice, or, at least, not so soon after he knew of his loss, and he continued to rock the monkey back and forth, to whisper in his ear now and then, and to cry as if his heart was breaking, for nearly an hour.
Ben tried, in his rough, honest way, to comfort him, but without success; and it was not until the boy's grief had spent itself that he would listen to any reasoning.
All this time the monkey had remained perfectly quiet, submitting to Toby's squeezing without making any effort to get away, and behaving as if he knew he had done wrong, and was trying to atone for it. He looked up into the boy's face every now and then with such a penitent expression that Toby finally assured him of forgiveness and begged him not to feel so badly.
XIII. TOBY ATTEMPTS TO RESIGN HIS SITUATION
At last it was possible for Toby to speak of his loss with some degree of calmness, and then he immediately began to reckon up what he could have done with the money if he had not lost it.
“Now see here, Toby,” said Ben, earnestly, “don't go to doin' anything of that kind. The money's lost, an' you can't get it back by talkin'; so the very best thing for you is to stop thinkin' what you could do if you had it, an' just to look at it as a goner.”
“But—” persisted Toby.
“I tell you there's no buts about it,” said Ben, rather sharply. “Stop talkin' about what's gone, an' just go to thinkin' how you'll get more. Do what you've a mind to the monkey, but don't keep broodin' over what you can't help.”