"What!" he gasped.
"It's the very thing!" cried Bertie. "I'll set you up in a little
business, and you can have an easy time."
"Master Albert!" panted the boy shocked to the depths of his soul.
"She's beautiful, Samuel--you know she is. And she's a fine girl, too-
-only a little wild. I believe you'd be just the man to hold her in."
Bertie paused a moment, and then, seeing that the other was
unconvinced, he added with a laugh, "Wait till you've known her a bit.
Maybe you'll fall in love with her."
But Samuel only shook his head. "Master Albert," he said, in a low
voice, "I'm afraid you've not understood the reason I've come to you."
"How do you mean?"
"This--all this business, sir--it's shocked me more than I can tell
you. I came here to serve you, sir. You don't know how I felt about
it. I was ready to do anything--I was so grateful for a chance to be
near you! You were rich and great, and everything about you was so
beautiful--I thought you must be noble and good, to have deserved so
much. And now, instead, I find you are a wicked man!"
The other sat up. "The dickens!" he exclaimed.
"And it's a terrible thing to me," went on Samuel. "I don't know just
what to make of it--
"See here, Samuel!" demanded the other angrily. "Who sent you here to
lecture me?"
"I don't see how it can be!" the boy exclaimed. "You are one of the
fit people, as Professor Stewart explained it to me; and yet I know
some who are better than you, and who have nothing at all.
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