“This is not the time to show it,” said Gerald.
“I differ with you. This is the precise time to show it if you have it, which I very much doubt.”
“I will show it to you in due time, Mr. Wentworth. This is not the right time, nor the right place.”
“Have you it about you?”
“I shall answer no more questions, Mr. Wentworth.”
Wentworth eyed Gerald, doubting whether he should not seize him then and there and wrest from him the paper if he proved to have it, but there was something in the resolute look of the boy that daunted him, man though he was, and he decided that it would be better to have recourse to a little strategy. For this the boy would be less prepared than for open force.
“Look here, Gerald,” he said, moderating his tone and moving further away, as if all thoughts of violence had left him, “I will have a few plain words with you. If you have any paper compromising me in any way, I will make it worth your while to give it to me. I remember that I was in a little trouble, and being young made a mountain out of a molehill. Still I don’t care to have it come out now, when I am a man of repute, that I ever sowed wild oats like most young men. I will make you the same offer that I did your father. Give me the paper and I will give you a thousand dollars to start you in life. Think what such a sum will be to a boy like you.”
“I don’t think I care much for money, Mr. Wentworth,” responded Gerald. “But my father left me this claim upon you as a sacred trust. I feel that I owe it to his memory to collect it to the uttermost farthing.”
Bradley Wentworth shrugged his shoulders.
“You are about the most foolish boy I ever met,” he said. “You are almost a pauper, yet you refuse a thousand dollars.”