"I am, though I've got no particular call to," said Tom. Truth to tell he was not in an amiable temper, what with his hunger, and his rags, and his meeting with Jeremiah. "You sent for me. What do you want? And mind this--I don't stir hand or foot till I get something to eat." Miser Farebrother became suddenly quite cool. It was generally the case when an antagonist he had in his power was before him. "Something to eat, eh? You scoundrel! you have the stomach of an ostrich." "I wish I had," said Tom; "then I could fill it with stones and rusty nails. As it is, I can't get those things down. I give you warning----" "What!" cried Miser Farebrother; "you give me warning?" "Yes; not to call hard names, or mayhap I'll throw them back at you." "Do you dare to speak to me in that manner," said the miser, "after all I've done for you?" Tom Barley looked ruefully at his rags of clothes, and said, with unconscious humour, "Yes, you have done for me; there's no mistake about that. I remember you promised to make my fortune. I look as if it was made!" "And whose fault is it," said Miser Farebrother, "that you're a pauper--whose fault but your own? That is, if what you say is true. But it isn't. You've got money rolled up in bundles somewhere--my money, that you've robbed me of." Tom Barley burst out laughing. "Who has told you that cock-and-bull?" he asked. "I'd like to give him half to prove it. I'm thinking of buying Buckingham Palace, I am. I've got money enough to pay for it rolled up in bundles." "Hold your tongue," said the miser, "and listen to me." "Go ahead," said Tom Barley. "When I first took you into my service," the miser commenced-- "At twopence a week," interposed Tom. "The Bank of England's breaking down with my savings." "It was my intention to make a man of you," continued the miser; and again Tom Barley interrupted him. "The Lord Almighty did that while you was thinking of it." "But," proceeded the miser, "I soon found out that I had taken a hopeless case in hand; I soon discovered that a clodhopper you were and a clodhopper you would remain, till you took your place in the workhouse as a regular. Then I lost interest in you, and let you go your way." "In a minute or two," said Tom Barley, "I've got a couple of words to say to you that I don't go out of this room without saying." "I allowed you to remain on my estate, and gave you your meals, and paid you so much a week." "Why not say so little, instead of so much?" asked Tom, who, driven by necessity and despair, was coming out in a new light. "The work you did I could have had done for a song----" "The Lord forbid," said Tom, "that I should have heard you sing it! It would have given me the gripes. I've got 'em now." "But I kept you on out of charity, and I told you that you were at liberty to earn money elsewhere whenever you could pick up an odd job." "My experience is," he said, "that there's about five million evens to one odd."