“Why in thunder, sir,” said he, with a certain respect in spite of the insolence of the words—­“why in thunder don’t you haul in, shut up shop, sell out, pay your debts, and go it small?”

“Perhaps I will,” Carroll replied, in a tone of rage.  His face flushed, he raised his right arm as if with an impulse to strike the other man, then he let it drop.

“Sell the horses, papa?” cried Eddy, at his elbow, with a tone of dismay.

Carroll turned and saw the boy.  “Go into the house; this is nothing that concerns you,” he said, sternly.

“Are the horses paid for, papa?” asked Eddy.

“I believe they ain’t,” said the man in the chair, with a curious ruminating impudence.  Carroll towered over him with an expression of ignoble majesty.  But Eddy had made a dart into a stall, and the tramp of iron hoofs was suddenly heard.

“I can harness as well as he can,” a small voice cried.

Then Martin rose.  “I’ll harness,” he said, sullenly.  “You’ll get hurt”—­to the boy.  “She don’t like children round her.”  He took hold of the boy’s small shoulders and pushed him away from the restive horse, and grasped the bridle.  Carroll strode out of the stable.

“Say,” said Eddy, to the man.

“Well, what?  I’ve got to have my pay.  I’ve worked here long enough for nothin’.”

“When I’m a man I’ll pay you,” said Eddy, with dignity and severity.  “You must not speak to papa that way again, Martin.”

Martin looked from the tall horse to the small boy, and began to laugh.

“I’ll pay you with interest,” repeated the boy, and the man laughed again.

“Much obleeged,” said he.

“I don’t see, now, why you need to worry just because papa hasn’t paid you,” said Eddy, and walked out of the stable with a gait exactly like his father.

The man threw the harness over the horse and whistled.

“He’s harnessing,” Eddy proclaimed when he went in.

His mother was pinning on her veil before the mirror over the hall settle.  Anna was just coming down-stairs in a long, red coat, with a black feather curling against her black hair under her hat.

“Where is Charlotte?” asked Mrs. Carroll.

“She has gone off to walk,” said Eddy.

“Well,” said Mrs. Carroll, “you must go after her and walk with her, Eddy.”

“I don’t want to, Amy,” said Eddy.  “I want to go to drive.”

Then Carroll came down-stairs and repeated his wife’s orders.  “Yes, Eddy, you must go to walk with your sister.  I don’t wish her to go alone,” said he peremptorily.  He still looked pale; he had grown thin during the last month.

“I don’t see why Charlotte don’t get married, too, and have her husband to go with her,” said Eddy, as he went out of the door.  “Tagging round after a girl all the time!  It ain’t fair.”

“Eddy!” called Carroll, in a stern voice; but the boy had suddenly accelerated his pace with his last words, and was a flying streak at the end of the drive.