Page:What will he do with it.djvu/335

Rh pense. But he found, rj the first delicate hint, that Waife would not hear of money, though the ex-Comedian did not affect any very Quixotic notions on that practical subject. " To tell you the truth, Sir, I have rather a superstition against having more money in my hands than I know what to do with. It has always brought me bad luck. And what is very hard—the bad luck stays, but the money goes. There was that splendid sum I made at Gatesboro'. You should have seen me counting it over. I could not have had a prouder or more swelling heart if I had been that great man Mr. Elwes the miser. And what bad luck it brought me, and how it all frittered itself away! Nothing to show for it but a silk ladder and an old hurdy-gurdy, and I sold them at half-price. Then, when I had the accident which cost me this eye, the railway people behaved so generously, gave me £120— think of that! And before three days the money was all gone!"

"How was that?" said George, half amused, half pained; "stolen, perhaps?"

"Not so," answered Waife, somewhat gloomily, " but restored. A poor dear old man, who thought very ill of me—and I don't wonder at it—was reduced from great wealth to great poverty. While I was laid up my landlady read a newspaper to me, and m that newspaper w^as an account of his reverse and destitution,, But I was accountable to him for the balance of an old debt, and that, with the doctor's bills, quite covered my £120. I hope he does not think quite so ill of me now. But the money brought good luck to him rather than to me. Well, Sir, if you were now to give me money I should be on the look-out for some mourn- ful calamity. Gold is not natural to me. Some day, however, by-and-b}', when you are inducted into your living, and have become a renowned preacher, and have plenty to spare, with an idea that you would feel more comfortable in your mind if you had done something royal for the basket-maker, I will ask you to help me to make up a sum which I am trying by degrees to save—an enormous sum—as much as I paid away from my rail- way compensation—I owe it to thi lady who lent it to release Sophy from an engagement which I—certainly without any re- morse of conscience—made the child break."

"Oh yes! What is the amount? Let me at least repay that debt."

"Not yet. The lady can wait—and she would be pleased to wait, because she deserves to wait—it would be unkind to her to pay it off at once. But in the meanwhile, if you could send me a few good books for Sophy?—instructive; yet not very, very dry. And a French dictionary—I can teach her French when