“I don’t think there is any chance of my giving up the place,” answered Grant.  “If I do, I will mention your name.”

“That’s a good fellow.”

Grant did not volunteer to recommend Tom, for he could not have done so with a clear conscience.  This omission, however, Tom did not notice.

“Well, Tom, I must be going.  Good-by, and good luck.”

Grant went home with a cheerful face, and announced his good luck to his mother.

“I am glad you are going to your employer’s house,” she said.  “I wish you could remain there permanently.”

“So do I, mother; but I hope at any rate to get a comfortable boarding place.  Tom Calder wants to room with me.”

“I hope you won’t think of it,” said Mrs. Thornton, alarmed.

“Not for a moment.  I wish Tom well, but I shouldn’t like to be too intimate with him.  And now, mother, I think I ought to write to Uncle Godfrey, and tell him what I have decided upon.”

“That will be proper, Grant.”  Grant wrote the following letter, and mailed it at once: 

“Dear uncle Godfrey: 

I am afraid you won’t like what I have to tell you, but I think it is my duty to the family to give up the college course you so kindly offered me, in view of father’s small salary and narrow means.  I have been offered a place in the office of a stock broker in New York, and have accepted it.  I enter upon my duties next Monday morning.  I hope to come near paying my own way, and before very long to help father.  I know you will be disappointed, Uncle Godfrey, and I hope you won’t think I don’t appreciate your kind offer, but I think it would be selfish in me to accept it.  Please do forgive me, and believe me to be

Your affectionate nephew, grant Thornton.”

In twenty-four hours an answer came to this letter.  It ran thus: 

“Nephew grant: 

I would not have believed you would act so foolishly and ungratefully.  It is not often that such an offer as mine is made to a boy.  I did think you were sensible enough to understand the advantages of a professional education.  I hoped you would do credit to the name of Thornton, and keep up the family reputation as a man of learning and a gentleman.  But you have a foolish fancy for going into a broker’s office, and I suppose you must be gratified.  But you needn’t think I will renew my offer.  I wash my hands of you from this time forth, and leave you to your own foolish course.  The time will come when you will see your folly.

Godfrey Thornton.”

Grant sighed as he finished reading this missive.  He felt that his uncle had done him injustice.  It was no foolish fancy, but a conscientious sense of duty, which had led him to sacrifice his educational prospects.

On Monday morning he took the earliest train for New York.

CHAPTER X