“Well, that’s about the size of it.”
“Excuse me, but I think you are wrong. According to what you say, it seems as if you believe what the old woman in the boarding house tells you, but would not believe what your head teacher tells you. Am I right to understand it that way?”
I was stuck. A Bachelor of Arts is confoundedly good in oratorical combat. He gets hold of unexpected point, and pushes the other backward. My father used to tell me that I am too careless and no good, and now indeed I look that way. I ran out of the house on the moment’s impulse when I heard the story from the old lady, and in fact I had not heard the story from either Hubbard Squash or his mother. In consequence, when I was challenged in this Bachelor-of-Arts fashion, it was a bit difficult to defend myself.
I could not defend his frontal attack, but I had already declared in my mind a lack of confidence on Red Shirt. The old lady in the boarding house may be tight and a grabber, I do not doubt it, but she is a woman who tells no lie. She is not double faced like Red Shirt. I was helpless, so I answered.
“What you say might be right,—anyway, I decline the raise.”
“That’s still funnier. I thought your coming here now was because you had found a certain reason for which you could not accept the raise. Then it is hard to understand to see you still insisting on declining the raise in spite of the reason having been eradicated by my explanation.”
“It may be hard to understand, but anyway I don’t want it.”
“If you don’t like it so much, I wouldn’t force it on you. But if you change your mind within two or three hours with no particular reason, it would affect your credit in future.”
“I don’t care if it does affect it.”
“That can’t be. Nothing is more important than credit for us. Supposing, the boss of the boarding house…….”