“I--I--feel that I ought to study very hard, so that I can--some day--when I’m a man--make my own living, sir,” he said, blushing very much. “Ah!” replied Skelton, with an air of calm inquiry. “Yes, sir,” responded Lewis, plucking up his courage a little. Skelton looked him squarely in the eyes, as he had done very often of late, and was met by a dauntless look. Ah, where was there another fifteen-year-old boy who showed such a nice sense of honour, such heroic firmness in withstanding temptation? He expressed something of this in his words, at which the boy’s face hardened, and his heart hardened too. “I only ask, sir,” he said, “that I shall be let alone until I am twenty-one. When I am a man I shall know how to stand upon my rights.” “I think, Lewis,” said Skelton calmly, “that your reason is already convinced. You no longer believe yourself to be the son of Thomas Pryor, yet you talk about making a fight for it.” Lewis made no reply. He was no match for Skelton, and he knew it; but his determination was perfectly unchanged. “Listen to me,” began Skelton after a moment, leaning forward in his chair; “you are rather an uncommon boy.” Skelton, as he said this, smiled slightly, remembering that Lewis could scarcely fail to be unlike most boys. “I shall talk to you as if you were a man, instead of a boy, and perhaps you will understand why it is that I intend to do you right in the face of the world.” “To do me wrong,” said Lewis under his breath. Skelton pretended not to hear. He then carefully and in detail went over the whole thing with Lewis, who happened to know all about it through Bulstrode. The only answer Skelton got out of the boy was a dogged “I don’t want it at the price I have to pay for it. You wouldn’t want to exchange your respectability for anything.” “But have I no claim upon you, Lewis?” asked Skelton. His tone was hard to resist. It conveyed an appeal as well as a right; but Lewis resisted. “I don’t know,” he said in a distressed voice; “all I know is that I believe that I am Lewis Pryor, and I want to stay Lewis Pryor; and if--if--you do as you say, you may make me a rich man some day, but you make me the inferior of everybody. I know it; I’ve talked it out with Mr. Bulstrode.” “And what did Bulstrode say?” asked Skelton, his face darkening. But Lewis was wary beyond his years. “I’d rather not tell, sir; Mr. Bulstrode wouldn’t like it.” “I’m sure he wouldn’t like it,” answered Skelton sardonically, “the ungrateful old good-for-nothing! But I can guess easily enough what he has been up to.” Lewis felt that he was playing a losing game, but he only repeated: “The Blairs will get that money.”