He was so well pleased with the prospect of a speculation that might change the slow process of addition into multiplication, that he at once determined to mention the matter to his father, and get his consent to appropriate some of the savings in the tin box to the purchase of a small cargo. He would rather not have consulted his father, but he had just paid his last quarter’s money into the tin box, and there was no other resource. All the savings were there; for Mr Tulliver would not consent to put the money out at interest lest he should lose it. Since he had speculated in the purchase of some corn, and had lost by it, he could not be easy without keeping the money under his eye. Tom approached the subject carefully, as he was seated on the hearth with his father that evening, and Mr Tulliver listened, leaning forward in his arm-chair and looking up in Tom’s face with a sceptical glance. His first impulse was to give a positive refusal, but he was in some awe of Tom’s wishes, and since he had the sense of being an “unlucky” father, he had lost some of his old peremptoriness and determination to be master. He took the key of the bureau from his pocket, got out the key of the large chest, and fetched down the tin box,—slowly, as if he were trying to defer the moment of a painful parting. Then he seated himself against the table, and opened the box with that little padlock-key which he fingered in his waistcoat pocket in all vacant moments. There they were, the dingy bank-notes and the bright sovereigns, and he counted them out on the table—only a hundred and sixteen pounds in two years, after all the pinching. “How much do you want, then?” he said, speaking as if the words burnt his lips. “Suppose I begin with the thirty-six pounds, father?” said Tom. Mr Tulliver separated this sum from the rest, and keeping his hand over it, said: “It’s as much as I can save out o’ my pay in a year.” “Yes, father; it is such slow work, saving out of the little money we get. And in this way we might double our savings.” “Ay, my lad,” said the father, keeping his hand on the money, “but you might lose it,—you might lose a year o’ my life,—and I haven’t got many.” Tom was silent. “And you know I wouldn’t pay a dividend with the first hundred, because I wanted to see it all in a lump,—and when I see it, I’m sure on’t. If you trust to luck, it’s sure to be against me. It’s Old Harry’s got the luck in his hands; and if I lose one year, I shall never pick it up again; death ’ull o’ertake me.” Mr Tulliver’s voice trembled, and Tom was silent for a few minutes before he said: “I’ll give it up, father, since you object to it so strongly.”