“You can go to any lawyer you please,” he said; “but what for? let me ask. If I take you, and do for you, and provide for you, what has a lawyer to say in the matter?”
“Well, that is just it—that’s just what I have to inquire into; because, you see, Mr. Martin, I don’t want you to provide for me at all.”
“I think now we are coming to the point,” said Martin. “Stick to it, Popsy, for time’s precious.”
“I think you ought to allow me to be educated out of mother’s money.”
“Highty-tighty! I’m sure you know enough.”
“I don’t really know enough. Mrs. Ward, of Aylmer House, has taken me as an inmate of her school for forty pounds a year. Her terms for most girls are a great deal more.”
Martin looked with great earnestness at Maggie.
“I want to go on being Mrs. Ward’s pupil, and I want you to allow me forty pounds a year for the purpose, and twenty over for my clothes and small expenses—that is, sixty pounds a year altogether. I shall be thoroughly educated then, and it seems only fair that, out of mother’s hundred and fifty a year, sixty pounds of the money should be spent on me. There’s no use talking to mother, for she gets so easily puzzled about money; but you have a very good business head. You see, Mr. Martin, I am only just sixteen, and if I get two more years’ education, I shall be worth something in the world, whereas now I am worth nothing. I hope you will think it over, Mr. Martin, and do what I wish.”
Martin was quite silent for a minute. The waiter came along and was paid his bill, with a very substantial tip for himself thrown in. Still Martin lingered at the breakfast-table with his eyes lowered.
“There’s one thing—and one thing only—I like about this, Popsy-wopsy,” he said.