'
'A good lad!' cried the father, breathing on his cold hands, and feebly
chafing them against each other. 'A prudent lad! He never delivered
himself up to the vanities of dress. No, no!'
'I don't know but I would, though, mind you, if I could do it for
nothing,' said his son, as he resumed the paper.
'Ah!' chuckled the old man. 'IF, indeed!--But it's very cold.'
'Let the fire be!' cried Mr Jonas, stopping his honoured parent's hand
in the use of the poker. 'Do you mean to come to want in your old age,
that you take to wasting now?'
'There's not time for that, Jonas,' said the old man.
'Not time for what?' bawled his heir.
'For me to come to want. I wish there was!'
'You always were as selfish an old blade as need be,' said Jonas in a
voice too low for him to hear, and looking at him with an angry frown.
'You act up to your character. You wouldn't mind coming to want,
wouldn't you! I dare say you wouldn't. And your own flesh and blood
might come to want too, might they, for anything you cared? Oh you
precious old flint!'
After this dutiful address he took his tea-cup in his hand--for that
meal was in progress, and the father and son and Chuffey were partakers
of it.
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