Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/102

92 " To show, sir—what do you mean?"

"What do you do for a living? How do you subsist?"

"Oh, comfortably enough. Of course it would be criminal in you not to satisfy yourself on that point. My income is derived from three sources. First, some property left me by my dear mother. Second, a legacy from my poor brother, who had inherited a small fortune from an old relation of ours who took a great fancy to him (he went to America to see her), and which he divided among the four of us in the will he made at the time of the war."

"The war—what war?" asked Mr. Dosson.

"Why the Franco-German"

"Oh, that old war!" And Mr. Dosson almost laughed. "Well?" he softly continued.

"Then my father is so good as to make me a little allowance; and some day I shall have more—from him."

Mr. Dosson was silent a moment; then he observed, "Why, you seem to have fixed it so you live mostly on other folks."

"I shall never attempt to live on you, sir!" This was spoken with some vivacity by our young man; he felt the next moment that he had said something that might provoke a retort. But his companion only rejoined, mildly, impersonally:

"Well, I guess there won't be any trouble about that. And what does my daughter say?"