"I am a factory boy, I acknowledge, and am not ashamed to acknowledge it. Is this all you have to say to me? If so, I will pass on, as I am in haste."
"I have something else to say to you. You were impudent to me last evening."
"Was I? Tell me how."
"Did you not insist on going home with Hester Paine, when I had offered my escort?"
"What of that?"
"You forget your place."
"My place was at Hester Paine's side, since she had accepted my escort."
"It was very presumptuous in a factory boy like you offering your escort to a young lady like Miss Paine."
"I don't see it," said Robert, independently; "and I don't think it struck Hester in that light. We had a very agreeable walk."
Halbert was provoked and inflamed with jealousy, and the look with which he regarded our hero was by no means friendly.