‘I do him a good turn! I, a broken man, without character or anything; without a friend! and he a fine, respectable young fellow, well thought of, and clever, and knowing more than I ever knew at my best. That’s nonsense, Joe.’ ‘Not if you’ll think a bit, guv’nor; I hear him say them papers is my fortune--and then I hears him ’eave a sigh. He’s not one of the pushing ones, he isn’t. He knows as they’re worth a deal, but he hasn’t the face to say “Look here, you give me so much for this.” Guv’nor, I know you’re a man as will do a deal for a friend. Why don’t you take ’em just as they lies there, and take ’em to some person as deals in that sort of thing, and just up and ask ’em what’ll they give for this? “There’s a young un,” says you, “as understands everything about it and is just the man to work ’em out.” If I were in your place, guv’nor, that’s what I would do.’ ‘But, my good fellow,’ said March, ‘those papers belong to the young man here, not to me.’ ‘Guv’nor,’ said Joe, ‘I don’t doubt as the best that’s in that long story as you’re writing out there comes out o’ your own ’ead. It stands to reason as you know more about it than a young feller like ’im.’ The philosophical gull, who never learned wisdom, was touched by this in the most assailable point. ‘It’s true,’ he said, ‘Joe,--though how you’ve found it out I can’t tell--that I have carried out a suggestion or two, and put in something that seemed to me the logical consequence of what he said. But nothing practical, for I don’t understand the practical part. And how does that sort of thing give me any real claim?’ ‘Guv’nor,’ repeated Joe, ‘you needn’t tell me. I know you, and how you’re always giving up to other folks. It’s half yours and more, I’ll be bound. And the best you could do for the young ’un is just what I tells you. I’m practical, I am. If it was anything in my way, I’d do it like a shot; but it ain’t in my way. The outsides o’ things has a deal of power in this world. You in your fine respectable suit, you can go where you please like a prince. But me, it’s “Be off with you--get along with you;” they won’t say nothing of that sort to you. And you’ll just make the young man’s fortune, that’s what you’ll do. Say as he’s the very one to look after the works and knows all the practical part. They ought to settle something handsome on you at once as your share and take him on as foreman, or whatever it is; and in that way you’d both get the best of it and all done well.’