Another matter that seemed to bear on his going away was that this brilliant and human Uncle Bunker was a “trustee.”  Not only a trustee, but his trustee; his very own, like his shell, or anything.  This led to his discovery that he had money.  His mother, it seemed, had left it to him; Bunker money that the two older uncles had sought and failed to divert from her on the occasion of her wedding one below her station.  Money! and the capable Uncle Bunker as trustee of that money!  Money one could buy things with!  He was pleasantly conscious of being rather important under the glance of familiars.  Even his father spoke formal words of counsel to him, as if a gulf was between them—­his father now bereft of all Bunker prestige, legal or social.

And the new uncle was to “educate” him, though this was to be paid for out of that money of his very own.  He was rudely shocked to learn that you had to pay money to go to school.  Loathing school as he did, to pay money for your own torture—­money that would buy things—­seemed unutterably silly.  But despite this inbecility the prospect retained its glamour.

He would have suffered punishments even worse than school for the privilege of existing near that beautiful bride, whom he was now calling, at her especial request, “Aunt Clara.”  She readily understood any affair that he chose to explain to her; understood about his shell and said it was the most beautiful thing in all the world.  She understood, too, and was deeply sympathetic about Skipper, the dog.  Skipper was one of a series of puppies that Bean had appropriated from the public highway.  Some had shamefully deserted him after a little time of pampering.  Others, and these were the several that had howled untimely in the far night, had mysteriously disappeared.  Bean had sometimes a hurt suspicion that his father knew more than he cared to tell about these vanishings.  But Skipper had stayed and had not howled.  Buffeted wastrel of a thousand casual amours, soft-haired, confiding, ungainly, he was rich in understanding if not in beauty.  And yet he must be left.  Even the discriminating and ever-just Aunt Clara felt that Skipper would not do well in a great city.  Of course she was not clumsy enough to suggest that there were other dogs in the world, as did her less discerning husband.  But she said that it would come out all right, and Bean trusted her.  She knew, too, what would happen on his first night away, and came softly to his bed and solaced him as he lay crying for Skipper.

Those first Chicago days were rich in flavour.  The city was a marvel of many terrors, a place of weird sounds, strange shapes and swift movements, among which—­having been made timid by much adversity—­you had need to be very, very careful if your hand was in no one’s.  The house itself was wonderful:  a house of real brick and very lofty.  If you started in the basement you could go “upstairs” three distinct times in it before you reached the top.  He had never imagined such a house for any but kings to live in.  Within were many rooms; he hardly could count them all; and regal furnishings, gay with colour; and, permeating it all, a most appetizing odour of cooked food, eloquent tale of long-eaten banquets, able reminder of those to come.