'If you would take your hand away from your mouth, Henry,' said his uncle sharply, 'perhaps I could make out what you're trying to say.'
Henry sat up with a jerk.
'Why, you see, Uncle Arthur, there's a fellow bought the old Sunbury Gleaner and he's awfully smart—got his training in New York—and he's brought the paper already—why, it ain't eight months!—to where he's right on the point of turning his corner. You see, a thousand dollars now may easily be worth ten thousand in a few years. The Voice is a rotten paper. Nobody reads the darned thing. And I can't work for old Boice, anyhow. He drives me crazy. If he'd just give me half a chance to do the kind of thing I can do best once in a while; but this——'
'Henry, are you asking me to advance you a thousand dollars of your principal?'
'Why—well, yes, if——'
'Most certainly not!'
'But, you see, it's so close to November seventh, anyway, that I thought——'
'You thought that on your twenty-first birthday I would at once close out the investments I have made with the money your mother left and hand you the principal in cash?'
Henry stared at him, his thoughts for the moment frozen stiff. In Uncle Arthur's obstructionist attitude, so suddenly revealed, lay the promise of a new, wholly undreamed-of disappointment. It was crushing. Then, almost in the same second, it was stimulating. Henry's eyes blazed.
'You mean to say——' he began, shouting.