The old man looked up sharply, almost as though startled at the sound of Jack’s voice. He did not say anything, but he sat looking at Jack as though inviting him to continue. “Uncle Hezekiah,” said Jack again. He did not know in just what words to frame what he had to say. Then he continued: “I want to—to talk to you about a matter of business.” “Hey!” said the old man, “business! business! What d’ ye mean—what d’ye mean by business?” “Why,” said Jack, “I want some money to buy something. I went to see Master Burton to-day, and he told me I had best come to you and ask you for it.” Gradually Jack was becoming bolder as he became accustomed to the sound of his own voice. “Dan Williamson hath a boat for sale,” he continued. “He wants eighteen pound for it, and if I had twenty pound it would be just enough to fit her up as I would like to have her. I went and talked to Master Burton, and he told me I had best come to you and ask you for the money.” The old man stared blankly at Jack, his lean jaw hanging gaping with speechless surprise. “Why! why! what’s all this?” he said, finding his voice at last. “Twenty pound! Why, I do believe you’re gone clean clear crazy. Twenty pound! What’s Roger Burton got to do with my giving you twenty pound, I’d like to know? You’ll not get a farden, and that’s the long and the short of it. Master Burton, indeed! What business is it of his, I’d like to know?” He sat looking at Jack for a little while, and then he slowly resumed his interrupted supper again. Jack sat leaning back in his chair, with his hands in his breeches’ pockets, looking across the table at his uncle. His heart was swelling with a feeling of very choking and bitter disappointment and anger. It seemed to him that he had not expected much, but now that his uncle had denied him, his disappointment was very bitter. He watched his uncle as the old man continued eating in silence. “Very well,” said he at last, “then I know what I’ll do. I’ll go back to Master Burton again. He told me what to do, and that if you said me nay I was to go back to him again. He says that Sir Henry Ballister has been writing to him about me, asking how you treated me and what you did for me, and he told me if you would not give me what I asked for, I was to go back to him, and he’d write to Sir Henry and tell him all about it, and that he’d see if something couldn’t be done on my account.”