"The double negative, to be sure. How forcible and how natural it is! Well, well, my boy, let us try to believe you. Scatter all doubts by exhibiting your wealth. You had five pounds and ten shillings lately; and you pay nothing for anything that can be placed to your father's credit. Let me see your cash-box, Kit." "This is all that I have at present," said Christopher, pulling out his three-and-sixpence--for he had given the guard a shilling; "but you must not suppose that this is all to which I am entitled. I have I.O.U's from junior members of the University for really more than I can reckon up; and every one of them will get the money from his sisters, in the long vacation." "Oh, Kit, Kit! The firm ends with me. I must sell the good-will for the very worst old song, if it once leaks out what a fool you are. By what strange cross of reckless blood can such a boy be the future head of Piper, Pepper, Sharp, & Co.?" Mr. Sharp covered up his long clear head, and hid--for this once--true emotion. Kit looked at the kerchief with a very queer glance. He was not at all affected by this lamentation, however just, because he had heard it so often before; and he never could make out exactly how much of him his father could manage to descry through that veil Palladian. "Well, sir," he said, "you have always told me, as long as I can remember, that I was to be a gentleman; and gentlemen trust one another." "Very well said!" Mr. Sharp replied, with a deeply irritating smile; "and now I will trust you, young sir, in a matter of importance. Remember that I trust you as a gentleman--for I need not tell you one word, unless I choose--and if I depart from my usual practice, it is partly because you are beginning to claim a sort of maturity. Very well, let us see if it can be relied upon. You pledge your word to keep silence, and I tell you what you never could find out." Kit was divided with his mind in twain; whether he should draw the sharp falchion of his wit, or whether he should rather speak honeysome words; and, as nearly always happens when Minerva is admitted, he betook himself to the gentler process. "Very well, sir," he said, pulling up his collar, as if he had whiskers to push it down, "whatever I am told in confidence is allowed to go no further. It is scarcely necessary for me to say that I reserve, of course, the final right of reference to my honour." "To be sure, and to your ripe judgment and almost patriarchal experience, Kit. Then be it known to you, aged youth, that you have not shown hoar sagacity. You do not even know who the lady is whom you have honoured with your wise addresses." "And I don't care a d----n who she is," cried Kit, "so long as I love her, and she loves me!" "My son, you are turbulent and hasty. Your wisdom has left you suddenly. Your manners also; or you would not swear in the presence of your father." "Sir, I was wrong; and I beg your pardon. But I think that I learned the first way of it from you."