“That isn’t much, at any rate.”
“No, Paul, it isn’t much. Couldn’t you give me half a dollar more? Two dollars and a half are very little for me to live on and pay the rent,” whined the old man.
The appeal would have moved Paul if he had not suspected that the old man had a considerable sum of money laid away. As it was, it only disgusted him and made him feel angry at Jerry’s attempt to deceive him.
“Are you sure you get no money except what I give you?” he asked, pointedly.
“What do you mean, Paul?” demanded the old man, looking alarmed. “What gave you the idea that I had any other money?”
“At any rate,” said the telegraph boy, “you haven’t any money to throw away on this son of yours. I have no doubt he’s a bad man, as you say.”
“He was always bad and troublesome, James was,” said old Jerry. “He was always wanting money from the time he was a boy.”
“When he was a boy there was some reason for his asking it, but now he is a man grown, isn’t he?”
“Yes, yes.”