CHAPTER XI
A FRIEND GOES TO THE RESCUE
Leaving Robert for a time, we will accompany George Randolph on his homeward trip.
George did not at all enjoy the plain speaking he had heard from Robert. The more he thought of it the more his pride was outraged and the more deeply he was incensed.
“The low-lived fellow!” he exclaimed as he was rowing home. “I never heard of such impudence before. He actually seemed to think that I would take as a passenger a common fisherman’s boy. I haven’t sunk as low as that.”
George was brought up to have a high opinion of himself and his position. He really thought that he was made of a different sort of clay than the poor boys with whom he was brought in contact, and his foolish parents encouraged him in this foolish belief.
Probably he would have been very much shocked if it had become known that his own grandfather was an honest mechanic, who was compelled to live in a very humble way.
George chose to forget this or to keep it out of sight, as it might have embarrassed him when he was making his high social pretensions.
Falsely trained as he had been, and with a strong tendency to selfishness, George had no difficulty in persuading himself that he had done exactly right in rebuking the forwardness of his humble acquaintance.
“He isn’t fit to associate with a gentleman,” he said to himself. “What business is it of mine that he has to stay on the island all night? If his uncle left him there, I dare say he deserved it.”