oney, instead of its all being spent away on nothing. And
he thought that it wasn't his fault, for what else could he say when he
was asked all of a minute, except the first thing that came into his
head? And he wondered how it would be if anything happened to his
grandfather. Nicholas wasn't over-strong, and too young altogether
besides. And then he thought again that Mr. Willett was cleverer than
anybody he had ever seen, and more good-natured; it was a pleasure to go
about with him; and people were great fools to give up their chances.
Maybe Nicholas might get another some day. And maybe Mr. Polymathers had
been mistaken in thinking that he was the one best worth teaching.

All these things Dan thought, and the result of his cogitations was that
on the Monday he stole a sheaf of Nicholas's most complicated
cobweb-like diagrams from their hiding-place in the wall, and brought
them with him when he went by appointment to meet his patron off beyond
Knockfinny. And when Mr. Willett said to him: "Well, Dan, what about the
States and the doctoring?" he replied inconsequently by holding out the
sheets of paper with the explanation: "It's me brother, Nicholas, sir,
does be doin' them mostly out of his own head."

Mr. Willett looked at them for some minutes with interested
ejaculations. "Upon my word," he then said, "if these were done out of
his own head, he must have about as much mathematics located in it by
nature as a spider."

"Aren't they good for anythin' at all then, sir?" said Dan, not knowing
exactly what he hoped and feared.

"Good? They're astonishing," said Mr. Willett. He asked some questions
about Nicholas's age, schooling, and so forth; after which he said: "You
must take me to see this brother of yours, Dan. I expect he'll have got
to come right along with us."

But Dan stared round and round the spacious brown-purple floor they were
standing on, and after a far-off flight of wild fowl, and up at the sky,
where the clouds travel without let or hindrance, before he answered
hesitatingly: "The two of us couldn't ever both go, sir. How could we
be lavin' the forge and all on me ould grandfather? And Nicholas never
makes any great hand of the work."

"Ah! is that the way the land lies?" said Mr. Willett, as if half
impatient, and half amused, but not best pleased. He looked hard at Dan,
and thought he saw how matters stood, "You've no mind to leave the old
grandfather and the rest of the concern, but you t