"Oh, I fancy I shall be," interrupted the young man, flushing at the
suggestion.

"You've got to learn them Dennison boys, and them Dennison boys is
pretty hard to learn anything. You will need all the grit you've got."

"Oh, I'll teach them," asserted Gordon, confidently. The old man's eye
rested on him.

"'Tain't _teachin'_ I'm a-talkin' about. It's _learnin'_ I'm tellin' you
they need. You've got to learn 'em a good deal, or they'll learn you.
Them Dennison boys is pretty slow at learnin'."

The young man intimated that he thought he was equal to it.

"Well, we'll see," grunted the old fellow, with something very like a
twinkle in his deep eyes. "Not as they'll do you any harm without you
undertake to interfere with them," he drawled. "But you're pretty young
to manage 'em jest so; you ain't quite big enough either, and you're too
big to git in through the cat-hole. And I allow that you don't stand no
particular show after the first week or so of gittin' into the house any
other way."

"I'll get in, though, and I won't go in through the cat-hole either.
I'll promise you that, if you'll sustain me."

"Oh, I'll sustain you," drawled the squire. "I'll sustain you in
anything you do, except to pizon 'em with _slow_ pizon, and I ain't
altogether sure that wouldn' be jest manslaughter."