“Boys,” said Fitzchew Smy, “I s’pose we better come down early. There’s a shillin’, Beau. If I had one more such constituent as you, I should resign or die premachorely!”

“There’s a piece o’ tobacker,” said Jeems Bee languidly, “all I can afford, Beau, this mornin’. I went to a chicken-fight yesterday and lost all my change.”

“Mine,” said Box Izard, “is a regulation pen-knife, contributed by the United States, with the regret, Beau, that I can’t commodate you with a pine coffin for you to git into and git away down lower than you ever been.”

“Yaw’s a dollar,” said Pontotoc Bibb; “it’ll do for me an’ Lowndes Cleburn, who’s poet and genius, and never has no money. This buys me off, Beau, for a month.”

The gorgeous old mendicant took them all grimly and leering, and then pounced upon the Northern man, assured by their twinkles and winks that the rest expected some sport.

“And now, Right Honourable from the banks of the Susquehanna, Colonel Reybold—you see, I got your name; I ben a layin’ for you!—come down handsome for the Uncle and ornament of this capital and country. What’s yore’s?”

“Nothing,” said Reybold in a quiet way. “I cannot give a man like you anything, even to get rid of him.”

“You’re mean,” said the stylish beggar, winking to the rest. “You hate to put your hands down in yer pocket, mightily. I’d rather be ole Beau, and live on suppers at the faro banks, than love a dollar like you!”

“I’ll make it a V for Beau,” said Pontotoc Bibb, “if he gives him a rub on the raw like that another lick. Durn a mean man, Cleburn!”

“Come down, Northerner,” pressed the incorrigible loafer again; “it don’t become a Right Honourable to be so mean with old Beau.”

The little boy on crutches, who had been looking at this scene in a state of suspense and interest for some time, here cried hotly:

“If you say Mr. Reybold is a mean man, you tell a story, you nasty beggar! He often gives things to me and Joyce, my sister. He’s just got me work, which is the best thing to give; don’t you think so, gentlemen?”

“Work,” said Lowndes Cleburn, “is the best thing to give away, and the most onhandy thing to keep. I like play the best—Beau’s kind o’ play!”

“Yes,” said Jeroboam Coffee; “I think I prefer to make the chips fly out of a table more than out of a log.”

“I like to work!” cried the little boy, his hazel eyes shining, and his poor, narrow body beating with unconscious fervour, half suspended on his crutches, as if he were of that good descent and natural spirit which could assert itself without bashfulness in the presence of older people. “I like to work for my mother. If I was strong, like other little boys, I would make money for her, so that she shouldn’t keep any boarders—except Mr. Refolds. Oh! she has to work a lot; but she’s proud and won’t tell anybody. All the money I get I mean to give her; but I wouldn’t have it if I had to beg for it like that man!”

“O Beau,” said Colonel Jeems Bee, “you’ve cotched it now! Reybold’s even with you. Little Crutch has cooked your goose! Crutch is right eloquent when his wind will permit.”

The fine old loafer looked at the boy, whom he had not previously noticed, and it was observed that the last shaft had hurt his pride. The boy returned his wounded look with a straight, undaunted, spirited glance, out of a child’s nature. Mr Reybold was impressed with something in the attitude of the two, which made him forget his own interest in the controversy.