“Clerk’s salaries are very small,” said Mr. Brownlow, without knowing what it was he said.
“Yes, but they improve,” said his visitor, cheerfully; “and I don’t mind what I do. I could make up books or do any thing at night, or even have pupils--I have done that before. But I beg your pardon for troubling you with all this. If the place is filled up--”
“Nay, stop--sit down--you interest me,” said Mr. Brownlow. “I like a young fellow who is not easily cast down. Your mother--belongs--to Masterton, I suppose,” he added, with a little hesitation; he, that gave way to no man in Dartfordshire for courage and coolness, he was afraid. He confessed it to himself, and felt all the shame of the new sensation, but it had possession of him all the same.
“She belongs to the Isle of Man,” said the young man, with his frank straightforward look and the smile in his eyes. He answered quite simply and point-blank, having no thought that there was any second meaning in his words; but it was otherwise with him who heard. John Brownlow sat silent, utterly confounded. He stared at the young stranger in a blank way, not knowing how to answer or how to conceal or account for the tremendous impression which these simple words made on him. He sat and stared, and his lower lip fell a little, and his eyes grew fixed, so that the youth was terrified, and did not know what to make of it. Of course he seized upon the usual resource of the disconcerted--“I beg your pardon,” he said, “but I am afraid you are ill.”
“No, no; it is nothing,” said Mr. Brownlow. “I knew some people once who came from the Isle of Man. But that is a long time ago. I am sorry she has not found the people she sought for. But, as you say, there is nothing like work. If you can engross well--though how you should know how to engross after taking pupils and keeping books--”
“We have to do a great many things in the colony,” said his young visitor. “If a man wants to live, he must not be particular about what he does. I was two years in a lawyer’s office in Paris--”
“In Paris?” said Mr. Brownlow, with amazement.
“I mean in Paris, Canada West,” said the youth, with a touch of momentary defiance, as who would say, “and a very much better Paris than any you can boast of here.”