"I did the best I could for you, Maurice. You can't blame me."
"No, but I blame him. He has no business to be so partial to you. All the difference between us is, that you can jabber Dutch a little. That isn't worth ten dollars a week extra. He's down on me for something or other; I don't know why."
"I don't make any comparison between us, Maurice," said Gilbert. "I am perfectly willing you should get as high pay as I do."
"You are very kind," said Maurice, sarcastically.
"Now, don't get mad with a fellow," said Gilbert, good humoredly. "I can't help it."
But Maurice was sullen all day, and for some days subsequently. He insisted on regarding Gilbert as a successful rival, and would have injured him if he could.
It was about this time that our hero had his thoughts suddenly recalled to the uncle who had defrauded him of his birthright. Walking in Vine street one morning, he suddenly came face to face with the man whose boots he had brushed, more than three years before, on the steps of the Astor House. He knew him at once by the peculiar scar upon his right cheek, of which he had taken particular notice when they first met.
CHAPTER XVIII.
UNCLE AND NEPHEW.
Our hero stopped short, and, being directly in the path of his uncle, the latter was compelled to stop, too.