aves fled at the sound of his voice, his wife wept
incessantly at this the heaviest of her life's trials, and it was not
long before Alexander was made to feel his dependence so keenly by the
irascible planter that he leaped on his horse one day and galloped five
miles under the hot sun to Lytton's Fancy.

"I want to work," he announced, with his usual breathless impetuosity
when excited, bursting in upon Mr. Lytton, who was mopping his face
after his siesta. "Put me at anything. I don't care what, except in
Uncle Mitchell's store. I won't work for him."

Mr. Lytton laughed with some satisfaction. "So you two have come to
loggerheads? Tom Mitchell, well, is insufferable. With gout in him he
must bristle with every damnable trait in the human category. Come back
and live with me," he added, in a sudden burst of sympathy, for the boy
looked hot and tired and dejected; and his diminutive size appealed
always to Peter Lytton, who was six feet two. "You're a fine little
chap, but I doubt you're strong enough for hard work, and you love your
books. Come here and read all day if you like. When you're grown I'll
make you manager of all my estates. Gad! I'd be glad of an honest one!
The last time I went to England, that devil, Tom Collins, drank every
bottle of my best port, smashed my furniture, broke the wind of every
horse I had, and kept open house for every scamp and loafer on the
Island, or that came to port. How old are you--twelve? I'll turn
everything over to you in three years. You've more sense now than any
boy I ever saw. Three years hence, if you continue to improve, you'll be
a man, and I'll be only too glad to put the whole thing in your hands."

Alexander struggled with an impulse to ask his uncle to send him to
college, but not only did pride strike at the words, but he reflected
with some cynicism that the affection he inspired invariably expressed
itself in blatant selfishness, and that he might better appeal to the
enemies he had made to send him from the Island. He shook his head.

"I'll remain idle no longer," he said. "I'm tired of eating bread that's
given me. I'd rather eat yours than his, but I've made up my mind to
work. What can you find for me now?"

"You are too obstinate to argue with in August. Cruger wants a reliable
clerk. I heard him say so yesterday. He'll take you if I say the word,
and give you a little something in the way of salary."

"I like Mr. Cruger," said Alexander, eagerly, "and