"Yes, your father was a good friend to me. I acknowledge that. I wish I had money enough to pay that debt. It shall be the very first debt paid when I get on my feet again, and I expect to get on my feet, as sure as I live." "But, you see, Mr. Gray, while my mother is pinched for money, you have plenty." "It's all Mrs. Gray's money. She has plenty. I haven't anything." "But I want to go to school to Port William. My mother is too poor to help me. If you could let me have twenty-five dollars----" "But, you see, I can't. I haven't got twenty-five dollars to my name, that I can control. But by next New Year's I mean to pay your mother the whole thousand that I owe her." This speech impressed Jack a little, but remembering how often Gray had broken such promises, he said: "Don't you think it a little hard that you and Mrs. Gray are well off, while my mother is so poor, all because you won't keep your word given to my father?" "But, you see, I haven't any money, excepting what Mrs. Gray lets me have," said Mr. Gray. "She seems to let you have what you want. Don't you think, if you coaxed her, she would lend you twenty-five dollars till New Year's, to help me go to school one more term?" Francis Gray was a little stunned by this way of asking it. For a moment, looking at the entreating face of the boy, he began to feel a disposition to relent a little. This was new and strange for him. To pay twenty-five dollars that he was not obliged by any self-interest to pay, would have been an act contrary to all his habits and to all the business maxims in which he had schooled himself. Nevertheless, he fingered his papers a minute in an undecided way, and then he said that he couldn't do it. If he began to pay creditors in that way "it would derange his business." "But," urged Jack, "think how much my father deranged his business to oblige you, and now you rob me of my own money, and of my chance to get an education." Mr. Gray was a little ruffled, but he got up and went out of the room. When Jack looked out of the window a minute later, Gray was riding away down the road without so much as bidding the troublesome Jack good-morning. There was nothing for Jack to do but to return to town and make the best of it. But all the way back, the tired and discouraged boy felt that his last chance of becoming an educated man had vanished. He told his mother about his attempt on Mr. Gray's feelings and of his failure. They discussed the matter the whole evening, and could see no chance for Jack to get the education he wanted. "I mean to die a-trying," said Jack, doggedly, as he went off to bed. CHAPTER XVI AN EXPLORING EXPEDITION The next day but one, there came a letter to Mrs. Dudley that increased her perplexity. "Your Aunt Hannah is sick," she said to Jack, "and I must go to take care of her. I don't know what to do with you." "I'll go to Port William to school," said Jack. "See if I don't."