f magnifying
a friend's importance, he always rose grandly superior to mere
matter-of-fact restraints, and seized the golden moment without an
instant of hesitation or a syllable of compromise.

"Get lots of money, does he?" proceeded Mat. "And keeps on hoarding of
it up, I daresay, like all the rest of you over here?"

_"He_ hoard money!" retorted Zack, "You never made a worse guess in your
life. I don't believe he ever hoarded six-pence since he was a baby. If
Mrs. Blyth didn't look after him, I don't suppose there would be five
pounds in the house from one year's end to another."

There was a moment's silence. (It wasn't because he had money in it,
then, thought Mat, that he shut down the lid of that big chest of his so
sharp. I wonder whether--)

"He's the most generous fellow in the world," continued Zack, lighting a
cigar; "and the best pay: ask any of his tradespeople."

This remark suspended the conjecture that was just forming in Mat's
mind. He gave up pursuing it quite readily, and went on at once with
his questions to Zack. Some part of the additional information that he
desired to obtain from young Thorpe, he had got already. He knew now,
that when Mr. Blyth, on the day of the picture-show, shut down the
bureau so sharply on Mr. Gimble's approaching him, it was not, at any
rate, because there was money in it.

"Is he going to bring anybody else in here along with him, to-morrow
night?" asked Mat.

"Anybody else? Who should he bring? Why, you old barbarian, you don't
expect him to bring Madonna into our jolly bachelor den to preside over
the grog and pipes--do you?"

"How old is the young woman?" inquired Mat, contemplatively snuffing the
candle with his fingers, as he put the question.

"Still harping on my daughter!" shouted Zack, with a burst of laughter.
"She's older than she looks, I can tell you that. You wouldn't guess
her at more than eighteen or nineteen. But the fact is, she's actually
twenty-three;--steady there! you'll be through the window if you don't
sit quieter in your queer corner than that."

(Twenty-three! The very number he had stopped at, when he reckoned off
the difference on his fingers between 1828 and 1851, just before young
Thorpe came in.)

"I suppose the next cool thing you will say, is that she's too old for
you," Zack went on; "or, perhaps, you may prefer asking another question
or two first. I'll tell you what, old Rough and Tough, the inquisitive
part of your char