"It does not seem to be," she said, with some displeasure. "But then,"
she added with a sigh, "you have not the same companion that the three
holy children had."

"Who was that?" rejoined Cornelius, for he had partly forgotten the
story he knew well enough in childhood.

"We will not talk about him now," answered his mother. "He has been
knocking at your chamber-door for some time: when he comes to the
furnace-door, perhaps you will open that to him."

Cornelius returned no answer; he felt his mother's seriousness awkward,
and said to himself she was unkind; why couldn't she make some allowance
for a fellow? He meant no harm!

He was still less patient with his mother's not very frequent
admonitions, since going into the bank, for, much as he disliked it, he
considered himself quite a man of the world in consequence. But he was
almost as little capable of slipping like a pebble among other pebbles,
the peculiar faculty of the man of the world, as he was of perceiving
the kind of thing his mother cared about--and that not from moral lack
alone, but from dullness and want of imagination as well. He was like
the child so sure he can run alone that he snatches his hand from his
mother's and sets off through dirt and puddles, so to act the part of
the great personage he would consider himself.

With all her peace of soul, the heart of the mother was very anxious
about her son, but she said no more to him now: she knew that the shower
bath is not the readiest mode of making a child friendly with cold
water.