“Believe me, sir, I appreciate, and all my comrades will when I tell them of it, the good feeling and the generosity that have dictated your offer, but we could not on any account accept it. I am sure that in this I speak for all. I believe that any boy in this country who really wants an education can get it, if he chooses to work hard enough and live plainly enough. My brother has not been able to go to school much at any time in his life, because of his ill-health, and yet he is much the best educated one among us, and if he lives, he will be reckoned a well-educated man, even among men who are college graduates. As for the rest of us, we can get a college education, as I said, if we choose to work hard enough and live hard enough. If we don’t choose to do that, why, we must go without. But we thank you all the same, and I want you to know that we recognize the generosity of your offer, though we cannot accept it. Now, please don’t let’s talk of that any more, because it isn’t pleasant to refuse a request such as yours; for I take it from your manner and tone that you mean it as a request rather than as an offer of aid.” With that, Phil walked away, and there was naturally no more to be said. But an hour later the gentleman, who was still feeble from his late exposure and suffering, asked Phil again to sit down by him. Then he said:-- “I am not going to reopen the question that we discussed a while ago, because I understand and honor your decision with regard to it. But there is another little service that I am in position to render you, and that I might render to anybody with whom I came into pleasant contact. My name counts for a good deal with my commission merchant in New Orleans; for how much it counts, it would not be quite modest for me to say; but, at any rate, I want to give you a letter to him, if you will allow me. When you get there, you will wish to sell your cargo, and of course you will be surrounded by buyers, but most of them will be disposed to take advantage of your youth and of your inexperience in the market. I cannot imagine how, in their hands, you can escape the loss of a considerable part of the value of what you have to sell. Now the commission merchant to whom I wish to give you a letter is a man of the very highest integrity, besides being my personal friend and my agent in business. I suggest that you place the whole matter of the sale of your boat and cargo in his hands, and I am confident that the difference in the results will be many hundreds of dollars in your favor. This is, as I said, a service that I might render even to a casual acquaintance. Surely, you will not deny me the privilege of rendering it to a group of young men who have done for me what you boys have.” Phil rose and stood before him embarrassed.