"No, Aunty, we've put that off for a while. We think it will be best to do some other things first."
"What are the other things?"
"One of them is a printing-office. We think of setting up a little printing-office to print little books and papers and cards and things, if we can get together enough money for it. It takes rather more capital than we have at present."
I suppose Aunt Mercy thought I was the other one besides himself included in Ned's "we."
"I should have supposed," said she, "that it was best to finish one muddle before going into another. But you know best, Edmund Burton. I have great confidence in your judgment." And she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, and seemed to be dreaming for some minutes. I doubt if she more than half knew which Edmund Burton she was talking to—the one who had long since gone down beneath the waters of a distant sea, or the young scapegrace who, without intending to represent anything falsely, had got so much money from her on false representations.
"I don't know how it is," said he to me one day. "I never intend to cheat Aunt Mercy; and yet, whenever I go to see her, things seem to fix themselves somehow so that she misunderstands. I guess it's her imagination."
"How much money do you need for your new muddle?" said she, when she came out of her reverie.
"Jack-in-the-Box says he thinks twenty-five or thirty dollars would fit up a good one," said Ned.
"Who is Jack-in-the-Box?"
"A gentleman connected with the railroad."