“So that you were really consenting to a sacrifice in offering to enter my employment at six dollars a week?”

“Just so!”

“Then I am all the more convinced that I have decided for the best in retaining Herbert.  I do not wish to interfere with your prospects in the city.”

“Oh, as for that,” said Eben, judging that he had gone too far, “I don’t care to go back to the city just yet.  I’ve been confined pretty steadily, and a few weeks in the country, hunting and fishing, will do me good.”

George Melville bowed, but said nothing.

Eben felt that he had no excuse for staying longer, and reluctantly rose.

“If you should think better of what I’ve proposed,” he said, “you can let me know.”

“I will do so,” said Melville.

“He’s rather a queer young man,” muttered Eben, as he descended the stairs.  “It’s funny that he should prefer a country boy like Herbert to a young man like me who’s seen life, and got some city polish—­at the same price, too!  He don’t seem to see his own interest.  I’m sorry, for it would have been a good deal more interesting to me, going round with him a few hours a day, than tending store for father.  There’s one thing sure, I won’t do it long.  I’m fitted for a higher position than that, I hope.”

“For downright impudence and cool assurance, I think that young man will bear off the palm,” thought George Melville, as his unwelcome visitor left the room.  “Herbert is in no danger from him.  It would probably surprise him if he knew that I should consider his company as an intolerable bore.  I will tell Herbert to-morrow the good turn his friend has tried to do him.”

CHAPTER IX

The solitary farmhouse.

If Eben had been sensitive, the cool reception which he met with at the hands of Mr. Melville would have disturbed him.  As it was, he felt angry and disappointed, and desirous of “coming up with” Herbert, as he expressed it, though it was hard to see in what way the boy had injured him.  It did not seem quite clear at present how he was to punish Herbert, but he only waited for an occasion.

When Herbert learned, the next morning, from Mr. Melville, in what manner Eben had tried to undermine him, and deprive him of his situation, he was naturally indignant.

“I didn’t think Eben Graham could be so mean,” he exclaimed.

“It was certainly a mean thing to do, Herbert,” said George Melville; “but you can afford to treat young Graham with contempt, as he has been unable to do you any injury.”

“What shall we do this morning, Mr. Melville?” asked Herbert.

“I should like a row on the river,” said Melville.  “Do you know of any boat we can have?”

“Walter Ingalls has a boat; I think we can hire that.”

“Do you know him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then you may go and ascertain whether we can have it, or I will go with you to avoid loss of time.”