"My boy, I'm very glad to see you. I've wanted to know about you more than any boy in the world. I suppose you've been told that I am a very bad man, but I'll prove to you that I'm not. There, put that ten-dollar gold piece in your pocket. That's what they call an eagle, and I hope you'll have a great many like it when you grow up." The lad hid his hands behind his back, and shook his head. "You don't mean to say that you won't take it!" said the proprietor in a wheedling tone. The boy kept his hands behind him, and shook his head. "Well, I suppose you are not to blame for disliking me; and now I want you to tell me all about your getting away from the poor-house, and who helped you out, and where your poor, dear father is, and all about it. Come, now, you don't know how much we looked for you, and how we all gave you up for lost. You don't know what a comfort it is to see you again, and to know that you didn't die in the woods." The boy simply shook his head. "Do you know who Mr. Belcher is? Do you know he is used to having people mind him? Do you know that you're here in my house, and that you _must_ mind me? Do you know what I do to little boys when they disobey me? Now, I want you to answer my questions, and do it straight. Lying won't go down with me. Who helped you and your father to get out of the poor-house?" Matters had proceeded to a desperate pass with the lad. He had thought very fast, and he had determined that no bribe and no threat should extort a word of information from him. His cheeks grew hot and flushed, his eyes burned, and he straightened himself in his chair as if he expected death or torture, and was prepared to meet either, as he replied: "I won't tell you." "Is your father alive? Tell me, you dirty little whelp? Don't say that you won't do what I bid you to do again. I have a great mind to choke you. Tell me--is your father alive?" "I won't tell you, if you kill me." The wheedling had failed; the threatening had failed. Then Mr. Belcher assumed the manner of a man whose motives had been misconstrued, and who wished for information that he might do a kind act to the lad's father. "I should really like to help your father, and if he is poor, money would do him a great deal of good. And here is the little boy who does not love his father well enough to get money for him, when he can have it and welcome! The little boy is taken care of. He has plenty to eat, and good clothes to wear, and lives in a fine house, but his poor father can take care of himself. I think such a boy as that ought to be ashamed of himself. I think he ought to kneel down and say his prayers. If I had a boy who could do that, I should be sorry that he'd ever been born."