We'd
better have an understanding; do you mean to learn engineering, or
don't you?'
'I don't see the use of it,' said the other.
'What do you mean? I suppose you must make your living somehow?'
'Arry laughed, and in such a way that Richard looked at him keenly,
his brow gathering darkness.
'What are you laughing at?'
'Why, at you. There's no more need for me to work for a living than
there is for you. As if I didn't know that!'
'Who's been putting that into your head?'
No scruple prevented the lad from breaking a promise he had made to
Mr. Keene, the journalist, when the latter explained to him the
disposition of the deceased Richard Mutimer's estate; it was only
that he preferred to get himself credit for acuteness.
'Why, you don't think I was to be kept in the dark about a thing
like that? It's just like you to want to make a fellow sweat the
flesh off his bones when all the time there's a fortune waiting for
him. What have I got to work for, I'd like to know? I don't just see
the fun of it, and you wouldn't neither, in my case. You've took
jolly good care you don't work yourself, trust you! I ain't a-going
to work no more, so there it is, plain and flat.'
Richard was not prepared for this; he could not hit at once on a new
course of procedure, and probably it was the uncertainty revealed in
his countenance that brought 'Arry to a pitch of boldness not
altogether premeditated.
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