"Yes?"
"I told him he'd been a friend to me when I was hard up, an' I was goin' to stick by him now't he was up agin it. I said I was goin' to work for him for nuttin'."
"Oh!" said David.
"But he wouldn't let me. So I'm fired. How about dat odder job?"
"I'm afraid it's taken, Tom."
David pulled a chair before the boy and for ten minutes spoke his best persuasion in favour of entering school.
"Yes, de Mayor handed me out de same line o' talk. He told me what a lot you'd done for me. He was right, too. An' he told me how much you wanted me to go to school."
He looked steadily, silently, at David. "D'you really want me to go as much as all dat, pard?"
"There's nothing I'd rather have you do."
"An' you won't miss de t'ree a week I been fetchin' in?"