"'E've a-spoke about what 'e don't know 'bout, then. Let un do what
they like, they can't put Tom Gaunt about; he can get work anywhere--Tom
Gaunt can, an' don't you forget that, old man."

The old man, placing his thin brown hands on his knees, was silent. And
thoughts passed through and through him. 'If so be as Tom goes, there'll
be no one as'll take me in for less than three bob a week. Two bob a
week, that's what I'll 'ave to feed me--Two bob a week--two bob a week!
But if so be's I go with Tom, I'll 'ave to reg'lar sit down under he for
me bread and butter.' And he contemplated his son.

"Where are you goin', then?" he said.

Tom Gaunt rustled the greenish paper he was reading, and his little,
hard gray eyes fixed his father.

"Who said I was going?"

Old Gaunt, smoothing and smoothing the lined, thin cheeks of the
parchmenty, thin-nosed face that Frances Freeland had thought to be
almost like a gentleman's, answered: "I thart you said you was goin'."

"You think too much, then--that's what 'tis. You think too much, old
man."

With a slight deepening of the sardonic patience in his face, old Gaunt
rose, took a bowl and spoon down from a shelf, and very slowly proceeded
to make himself his evening meal. It consisted of crusts of bread soaked
in hot water and tempered with salt, pepper, onion, and a touch of
butter. And while he waited, crouched over the kettle, his son smoked