“About myself? About me? I don't understand?”
“No, I don't suppose you do. That's what I got you over here this mornin' for, so as we could understand—you and me. Al, have you given any thought to what you're goin' to do from this on? How you're goin' to live?”
Albert looked at him uncomprehendingly.
“How I'm going to live?” he repeated. “Why—why, I thought—I supposed I was going to live with you—with you and Grandmother.”
“Um-hm, I see.”
“I just kind of took that for granted, I guess. You sent for me to come here. You took me away from school, you know.”
“Yes, so I did. You know why I took you from school?”
“No, I—I guess I DON'T, exactly. I thought—I supposed it was because you didn't want me to go there any more.”
“'Twasn't that. I don't know whether I would have wanted you to go there or not if things had been different. From what I hear it was a pretty extravagant place, and lookin' at it from the outside without knowin' too much about it, I should say it was liable to put a lot of foolish and expensive notions into a boy's head. I may be wrong, of course; I have been wrong at least a few times in my life.”
It was evident that he considered the chances of his being wrong in this instance very remote. His tone again aroused in the youth the feeling of obstinacy, of rebellion, of desire to take the other side.