5.  “Well, now, that’s very pleasant for him,” I returned, cheerfully, as a reply was plainly expected.  “Very pleasant; don’t you think so?”

6.  “Yes, ma’am; only—­”

7.  “Only what, Harry?”

8.  “Why, he has a big popgun, and a watch, and a hobbyhorse, and lots of things.”  And Harry looked up at my face with a disconsolate stare.

9.  “Well, my boy, what of that?”

10.  “Nothing, mother,” and the telltale tears sprang to his eyes, “only I guess we are very poor, aren’t we?”

11.  “No, indeed, Harry, we are very far from being poor.  We are not so rich as Mr. Crane’s family, if that is what you mean.”

12.  “O mother!” insisted the little fellow, “I do think we are very poor; anyhow, I am!”

13.  “O Harry!” I exclaimed, reproachfully.

14.  “Yes, ma’am I am,” he sobbed; “I have scarcely any thing—­I mean anything that’s worth money—­except things to eat and wear, and I’d have to have them anyway.”

15.  “Have to have them?” I echoed, at the same time laying my sewing upon the table, so that I might reason with him on that point; “do you not know, my son—­”

16.  Just then Uncle Ben looked up from the paper he had been reading:  “Harry,” said he, “I want to find out something about eyes; so, if you will let me have yours, I will give you a dollar apiece for them.”

17.  “For my eyes!” exclaimed Harry, very much astonished.

18.  “Yes,” resumed Uncle Ben, quietly, “for your eyes.  I will give you chloroform, so it will not hurt you in the least, and you shall have a beautiful glass pair for nothing, to wear in their place.  Come, a dollar apiece, cash down!  What do you say?  I will take them out as quick as a wink.”

19.  “Give you my eyes, uncle!” cried Harry, looking wild at the very thought, “I think not.”  And the startled little fellow shook his head defiantly.

20.  “Well, five, ten, twenty dollars, then.”  Harry shook his head at every offer.

21.  “No, sir!  I wouldn’t let you have them for a thousand dollars!  What could I do without my eyes?  I couldn’t see mother, nor the baby, nor the flowers, nor the horses, nor anything,” added Harry, growing warmer and warmer.

22.  “I will give you two thousand,” urged Uncle Ben, taking a roll of bank notes out of his pocket.  Harry, standing at a respectful distance, shouted that he never would do any such thing.

23.  “Very well,” continued the uncle, with a serious air, at the same time writing something in his notebook, “I can’t afford to give you more than two thousand dollars, so I shall have to do without your eyes; but,” he added, “I will tell you what I will do, I will give you twenty dollars if you will let me put a few drops from this bottle in your ears.  It will not hurt, but it will make you deaf.  I want to try some experiments with deafness, you see.  Come quickly, now!  Here are the twenty dollars all ready for you.”