"Will you be ready for college next year?"
"Hum — don't know — it depends. I am not anxious about it — I shall be all the better prepared if I wait longer, and I should like to have you with me. It will make no difference in the end, for I can enter higher, and that will save expense. Seriously Winthrop, you must get away."
"I must catch that fish," said Winthrop, — "if I can —"
"You won't —"
"I've got him."
"There's one place at Asphodel where I've been a good deal — Mr. Haye's — he's an old friend of my father's and thinks a world of him. You'll like him — he's been very kind to me."
"What shall I like him for — besides that?" said Winthrop.
"O he's a man of great wealth, and has a beautiful place there, and keeps a very fine house, and he's very hospitable. He's always very glad to see me; and it's rather a pleasant change from Glanbally's vis-à-vis and underdone apple-pies. He is one of the rich, rich Mannahatta merchants, but he has a taste for better things too. Father knows him — they met some years ago in the Legislature, and father has done him some service or other since. He has no family — except one or two children not grown up — his wife is dead — so I suppose he was glad of somebody to help him eat his fine dinners. He said some very handsome things to encourage me. He might have offered me the use of his library — but he did not."
"Perhaps he hasn't one."
"Yes he has — a good one."