Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/178

 "No. Neither does he." He relapsed into thought again.

Don waited.

"Do you know what it is to be on the streets without enough to eat? No." He chewed his cigar. He grumbled: "It wouldn't hurt him to learn." He shook his head. He muttered, in his beard: "Boys nowadays Huh!"

Suddenly he asked: "How much money have you?"

"I have a hundred and fifty-seven dollars. And Con has a little—I don't know how much—twenty-some dollars."

He smoked. "Will you look after him?"

"Yes."

After another interval of communion with his cigar, he demanded: "Will you write to me?"

"Yes."

"Will you promise not to write to me for money for him unless he hasn't enough to buy food?"

"I'll promise not to write to you for money at all."

"No, you won't. I don't want that. I want him to have to work, but I don't want him to have to starve. . . . And you're not to let him know that I'm sending you money for him, do you understand?"

"I'll not let him know anything about it unless you wish me to."

"Don't let him know that I'm sending him money—that's all."

"Aunt Jane," Don hinted. "Is she to know?"

Mr. McLean looked at him with an amused appreciation of his opinion of Aunt Jane's ability to keep a