“If you will give me Philip’s order for it, you shall have it, sir.”
“Frank Dunbar, you are trifling with me. Philip is now a pauper, and has no right to hold property of any kind. He cannot give a legal order.”
“Then you are guardian to a pauper?”
“In my capacity of overseer of the poor.”
“In my capacity as Philip’s friend, I refuse to consider you his guardian. You may call him a pauper, but that doesn’t make him one.”
“He is an inmate of the Norton Poorhouse.”
Frank laughed.
“I don’t want to be disrespectful, Squire Pope,” he said; “but I can’t help telling you that you undertook a bigger job than you thought for, when you made up your mind to make a pauper of Philip Gray.”
Squire Pope was indignant at the coolness of Frank.
“I shall come to your house to-morrow morning,” he said, “and convince you to the contrary.”