Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/161

151 "Ye don't say so! Be ye—be ye rich, in yer—yer—own right?" he stammered, curiosity and surprise centring together on the one-sided view which the average New England mind would naturally take of this phenomenal philanthropy. "I expect ye be, though, and uncommonly free-handed, too, or else ye would n't think o' plaguin' yerself with a child, at your time o' life," and the inquisitive eyes scanned Jim's tall but boyish figure from head to foot.

"You 're a professor, I reckon," he added in a half earnest, half satirical tone.

Jim looked utterly bewildered. He had never heard the phrase, "a professor," except at college, and was about to disclaim the honor in language most inexpediently emphatic, when I interposed.

"No; neither my friend nor I have yet made a profession of religion, Mr. Bunker. We have come to study with Parson Allen this winter, and"—I had a vague intention of closing my sentence with a diplomatic intimation that we hoped to be spiritually as well as intellectually benefited by Parson Allen's teachings; but Mr. Bunker interrupted me in tones most unflatteringly changed.

"So, ho! You 're them two young college chaps, be ye? We 've heerd considerable about ye; the parson was over a lookin' for ye, last night."

"Yes, Mr. Bunker," interposed Jim with great dignity, which, although it simply amused me, was not without its effect on Mr. Bunker: "we are the