A Red Wallflower

by Susan Warner

'I think he will do nothing of the kind. He knows I will have enough.'

'Nobody knows it,' said the older Dallas drily. 'I might lose all my money, for anything you can tell.'

The younger man's eyes flashed with a noble sparkle in them. 'What I say is still true, sir. What is the use of Oxford?'

'Humph!' said his father. 'The use of Oxford is to teach young men of fortune to spend their money elegantly.'

'Or to enable young men who have no fortune to do elegantly without it.'

'There is no doing elegantly without money, and plenty of it,' said the elder man, looking from under lowered eyelids, in a peculiar way he had, at his son. 'Plenty of it, I tell you. You cannot have too much.'

'Money is a good dog.'

'A good what?'

'A good servant, sir, I should say. You may see a case occasionally where it has got to be the master.'

'What do you mean by that?'