“Fifty cents a week seems to me very good wages,” answered Mrs. Brackett, whose ideas of compensation were not very liberal.
“I think it’s enough myself for an ordinary boy; but Henry is uncommonly smart.”
“He feels uncommonly smart, I can tell you that,” retorted the lady. “Why, Brackett, he seems to consider himself of as much importance as you or I.”
This was quite true. Andy had gauged Mr. and Mrs. Brackett pretty accurately, and felt a decided contempt for them both. Both were mean, one lazy and the other ill-tempered, while neither was up to the average in refinement or education. So he was disposed to rate himself considerably higher than either; and who of my young readers will deny that he has a right to do so?
“Well, Lucindy,” continued Brackett, in a pacific tone, “it doesn’t make any difference to us what the boy thinks of himself. If he chooses to make himself ridiculous by his airs, why let him, for all I care.”
“But there’s something more, Mr. Brackett,” said his wife.
“What more?”
“The way he treats Tommy. You haven’t forgotten how he treated him at supper the very first night?”
“Tommy was trying to prick him with a pin. You couldn’t expect him to stand that?”
“He could have mentioned it to you or me, then. Instead of that, what does he do? Why, he seizes the poor child’s hand and pulls the pin away from him. You ought to have flogged him for it.”