"Only fifty cents, and I'm eighteen years old. Isn't that mean?"
"It isn't a very large sum."
"Of course not. He ought to give me five dollars a week, and then I'd buy my own clothes. Now I have to take up with what I can get. He wanted to have his old overcoat, that he'd worn three winters, made over for me; but I wouldn't stand it. I told him I'd go without first."
Though these communications did not raise Joshua in the estimation of Walter, the latter could not help thinking that there was probably some foundation for what was said, and the prejudice against Mr. Drummond, for which he had blamed himself as without cause, began to find some extenuation.
"When I talk to the old man about his stinting me so," continued Joshua, "he tells me to go to work and earn some money."
"Why don't you do it?"
"He wants me to go into his store, but he wouldn't pay me anything. He offered me a dollar and a half a week; but I wasn't going to work ten or twelve hours a day for no such sum. If I could get a light, easy place in the city, say at ten dollars a week, I'd go. There aint any chance in Stapleton for a young man of enterprise."
"I've thought sometimes," said Walter, "that I should like to get a place in the city; but I suppose I couldn't get enough at first to pay my board."
"You get a place!" exclaimed Joshua, in astonishment. "I thought you was going to college."
"Father intended I should; but his death will probably change my plans."