He again embraced the child, who began to cry bitterly. "What _shall_ I do when you're gone?" she sobbed on his shoulder. "This house won't be fit to live in. _Such a lot of old pokes!_" And she stamped her feet and looked poutingly at her mother. Tom disengaged himself from her intermittent embraces, and went out with his bundle in his hand. He went first to the law-office, and sat his bundle on a chair, and addressed himself to Blackman, who had already arrived, and who was apparently much preoccupied with his writing. "Mr. Blackman, I've made a fool of myself by gambling, and Uncle Tom has concluded I can't stay with him any longer. I don't much wonder at it either. But I do hate to give up the study. Couldn't you give me something to do, so that I could earn my board at your house?" "No," said the lawyer, looking off horizontally, but not at Tom. "I was just going to tell you I couldn't keep you in the office. You've got altogether too much gunpowder for a lawyer. Better get into the regular army, Tom; that would suit your temper better." Then, after a moment's pause, he added: "I've got young sons, and your example might ruin them if you should come to my house to live." And he leaned forward as though he would resume his writing. These were sound and logical reasons that Blackman gave for not keeping Tom, and the lawyer was sincere as far as he went. But had he discovered by this time that Tom's mind was clearer and more acute than his own, and that if Tom should come to the bar with his uncle's backing he would soon be a formidable rival? "Besides," resumed the lawyer, as Tom turned reluctantly away, "it's better for you to go to the country. George Lockwood will have you bound over to keep the peace if you stay, and now you're out with your uncle, who's going your bail?" "Always George Lockwood," Tom thought, as he took up his bundle. "Good-bye, Mr. Blackman!" Tom's voice was husky now. But when he descended the stairs he went down the village street with a bold front, telling his old cronies good-bye, answering their questions frankly, and braving it out to the last. Put the best face upon it he could, his spirit was bitter, and to a group of old companions who followed him to the "corporation line," at the edge of the village, he said, almost involuntarily: "George Lockwood got me into this scrape to upset me, and he's purty well done it. If he ever crosses my path, I'm going to get even with him." Such vague threats do not bind one to any definite execution, and they are a relief to the spirit of an angry man. Having broken with his uncle, Tom must walk the long ten miles to his mother's farm in Hubbard Township. Before he got there his head was down; the unwonted fatigue of his journey, the bitter sense of defeat, the dark picture his imagination made of his mother's disappointment and of the despair of the ambitious Barbara took all the heart out of him.