“Does everybody do things?” sighed his listener, much perplexed.
“Everyone should. You are wondering what I do. My money comes to me before I earn it, from houses—land—I have to see the people who live in my houses have all that is fair and necessary, that the land is in order. Then sometimes we lend other people our money, and they find work for many others, and make more of it. Money is a very difficult thing to explain, Christopher. What I want you to remember now is that you must never take money from other people without giving something in return, because it’s stealing.”
Christopher, with his usual disconcerting shrewdness, found an unsatisfactory point.
“I don’t do anything for the money you give me every week, Cæsar.”
Aymer was fairly caught, and wanted desperately to laugh, only the boy’s face was so grave and concerned he did not dare. He thought for a moment to find a way out of the difficulty without upsetting the somewhat vague theories he had just crystallised into words.
“But I owe something to the world, and you are a small atom of the world, Christopher, so I choose to pay a mite of my debt that way. Besides, it is a part of your education to learn how to spend money, as much a part as Latin grammar.”
Christopher thought it a much pleasanter part and looked relieved.
“I am glad you aren’t paying me,” he said slowly; “of course it’s just my good luck that it happened to 44 be me you pay your debts to. Lots of people aren’t lucky like that.”
Which was a truth that remained very deeply indented in Christopher’s mind. Aymer ordered him to bed, but when he said good-night he kept grip of his hand.
“Why wouldn’t you like me to pay you?” he demanded, almost roughly.