"He's a spoiled boy," said Judy. "I wash my hands of him. I hope he'll wash his hands."
"The idea!" said Mrs. Bartholomew. "As if there was nobody else in the world to look after sick children, but Davy must leave his own business and go nursing them in the cars! I wouldn't have had anybody see him for a thousand dollars."
"What harm, mamma?" asked David coolly.
"Harm?" repeated Mrs. Bartholomew. "Is it your business to take all sick New York and all poor New York on your hands, and send them to watering places?"
"One poor little child?" said David.
"No matter; what's the use of sending one, if you don't send the other hundred thousand? Is it your business, David Bartholomew?"
"Hardly, mamma. But I thought the one was my business."
"There you were mistaken. There are two or three poor societies; it is for them to look after these cases. What is the use of having poor societies, if we are to do the work ourselves? So low! so undignified! so degrading! just ask any minister,—ask Dr. Blandford,—what he thinks."
"David don't care, mamma," said Judy. "David never cares what anybody thinks."
"Very wrong, then," said Mrs. Bartholomew; "every right-feeling person cares what other people think. How is the world to get along? David, I don't know you any more, you are so changed."