“I should like to know what more harm it would do for the money to lie in my name in the Old Bank than if it lay in yours?” argued Tod. “Should I be drawing cheques on purpose to get rid of it? That’s what you seem to suppose, father.”
“You’d be drawing them to spend,” said the pater.
“No, I shouldn’t. It’s my own money, after all. Being my own, I should take good care of it.”
Old Thomas came in with some glasses, and the argument dropped. Tod began again as we were going upstairs together.
“You see, Johnny,” he said, stepping inside my room on his way, and shutting the door for fear of eavesdroppers, “there’s that hundred pounds I owe Brandon. The old fellow has been very good, never so much as hinting that he remembers it, and I shall pay him back the first thing. To do this, I must have absolute possession of the money. A fine bobbery the pater would make if he got to know of it. Besides, a man come to my age likes to have a banking account—if he can. Good-night, lad.”
Tod carried his point. He turned so restive and obstinate over it as to surprise and vex the Squire, who of course knew nothing about the long-standing debt to Mr. Brandon. The Squire had no legal power to keep the money, if Tod insisted upon having it. And he did insist. The Squire put it down to boyish folly, self-assumption; and groaned and grumbled all the way to Worcester, when Tod was taking the five-hundred-pound cheque, paid to him free of duty, to the Old Bank.
“We shall have youngsters in their teens wanting to open a banking account next!” said the pater to Mr. Isaac, as Tod was writing his signature in the book. “The world’s coming to something.”
“I dare say young Mr. Todhetley will be prudent, and not squander it,” observed Mr. Isaac, with one of his pleasant smiles.
“Oh, will he, though! You’ll see. Look here,” went on the Squire, tapping the banker on the arm, “couldn’t you, if he draws too large a cheque at any time, refuse to cash it?”
“I fear we could not do that,” laughed Mr. Isaac. “So long as he does not overdraw his account, we are bound to honour his cheques.”