'Acres of room! You've seen the house.'
'I've walked past it sometimes,' answered Scheffer, with a smile.
'Well, it isn't such a mite of a place as you'd think. There's room enough.'
'It looks pretty and snug. I have often admired those flower beds; the place don't look much like others in the same row: one might know that. Paul, I've seen the time when I'd thought the man who offered me help was an angel. I'm older than you are. Of course you must experiment, and where's the merit of carrying plans about in your head a dozen years, waiting a chance to prove whether they're worth anything or not? Tell me now, do you want any money?'
'No,' Paul answered quickly, yet with inward hesitation. 'I'll come to you, though,' he added, 'when I do. I'll let you know the very day. But I I have something to study out yet. I'm going to get patents, you know.'
VI.
Paul returned home, and in a musing mood seated himself under the grapevine that grew on the brick wall in the rear of the cottage, the sole ornament and pride of the narrow yard. He may have been here an hour, when he heard strange noises in the house, then a heavy closing of the street door, and the voice of Josephine calling him. In the lobby stood an open iron-bound chest. A glance at the box explained it to Paul; but he said nothing—not a word—in explanation to Josephine or his mother, who stood expressing surprise and wonder, while he found the key and opened the heavy lid. They saw it was a tool chest.
Paul was the first to speak; for when he exhibited the contents, a deeper silence seemed to fall upon the women.
'It's no mistake,' he said to his mother. 'This belongs to August Scheffer. He has lent it to me. Isn't it kind of him? For I told him I had to borrow when I worked.'
'No,' said Paul's mother. 'It's anything but kind. You could waste time enough in such doings, Paul, without getting a tempter into the house. What do you want of tools? Do you get along with your books so fast you don't know what to do with your time? August Scheffer is just like his father, he never, as long as he lived, found out the use of money; if he had, his wife wouldn't have been left a beggar.'