CHAPTER XXIV
JAMES IS SNUBBED
In accordance with the invitation, Cameron walked to supper with SquireLeech. His social position as the son of a rich manufacturer insured hima cordial welcome and great attention from the whole family.
“You must find our village very dull, Mr. Cameron,” said his host.
“Oh, no, sir; I think I shall enjoy it very well.”
“We have very little good society, I am sorry to say.”
“That’s so, father,” broke in James. “I wish you would move to thecity.”
“That may come some day,” said his father, thinking of Mr. Temple andhis operations.
“How do you occupy your time, Mr. Cameron?” asked Mrs. Leech.
“I walk about in the forenoon. In the afternoon I am occupied with myprofessor,” answered the young man.
“Your professor!” repeated the lady, in surprise. “Is one of yourcollege professors staying here?”
“No; they are too busy to leave New Haven. I refer to my young reader,Herbert Carter.”
“Herbert Carter!” repeated James, scornfully.
“Yes,” said Cameron, ignoring the scorn; “he reads my lessons to me andthen questions me upon them. That is why I call him my professor.”
“I should hardly think you would find him competent,” said the squire.
“He don’t know much,” said James, contemptuously.
“On the contrary, I find him very intelligent. He reads clearly anddistinctly, and I congratulate myself on obtaining so satisfactory anassistant.”
Squire Leech shrugged his shoulders and had too much wisdom tocontinue detracting from Herbert’s merits, seeing that his guest seemeddetermined to think well of him. Not so James.
“He is from a low family,” he said, spitefully.
“Low?” interrogated Cameron, significantly.
“His mother is very poor.”
“That’s a very different thing,” observed Cameron.
“Mrs. Carter is a very respectable person,” said the squire,condescendingly. “Indeed, I have offered to relieve her by takingher house at a high valuation; but, under a mistaken idea of her owninterest, she refuses to sell.”
“But you’ll get it finally, father,” asked James.
“I shall probably have to take it in the end, as I have a mortgage on itfor nearly its value.”
Cameron looked down upon his plate and said nothing.
“My son will be happy to accompany you about the neighborhood, Mr.Cameron,” said Squire Leech.
“I can go round with you ‘most any time,” said James.
“Thank you both. You are very kind,” said Cameron, politely, but withoutexpressing any pleasure.
“I think I may send James to Yale,” observed his host, “I have a highidea of your college, Mr. Cameron.”
“Thank you. I think your son could hardly fail of deriving benefit froma residence at Yale.”
“James is my only child and I intend him to enjoy the greatesteducational advantages. I should like to have him become a professionalman.”
“I should like to be a lawyer; that’s a very gentlemanly profession,” said James.
“You might rise to be a judge,” said Cameron, with a smile.
“Very likely,” said James, in a matter-of-course way, that amused theyoung man exceedingly.
“What an odious young cub!” he said to himself, as he wended his wayback to the hotel at ten o’clock. “I never met such a combination ofpride and self-conceit.”
James thought Cameron had taken a fancy to him.
“He must get awfully tired of that low-bred Herbert Carter,” he said tohimself. “I guess I’ll go round tomorrow morning and take a walk withhim.”
He met Cameron on the steps of the hotel.
“I thought I’d come and walk with you,” he said.
“Very well,” said Cameron. “Do you know the way to Mr. Crane’s?”
“The carpenter’s?”
“Yes.”
“There’s nothing to see there,” said James.
“I beg your pardon. I want to see Herbert at his work.”
“Oh, well, I’ll show you the way,” said James.
Herbert was hard at work when the two came up.
“How are you, professor?” asked Cameron.
“Very well, Mr. Cameron. How are you, James?”
“I’m well enough,” answered James, who always found it hard to bedecently civil to our hero. “Don’t you get tired working?”
“I haven’t worked long enough this morning for that. I dare say I shallbe tired before noon.”
“Then your other work will begin,” said Cameron.
“That kind of work will be a rest to me, it’s so different.”
“If you had an extra hoe I would help you a little. It would be as goodas exercise in the gymnasium.”
“Perhaps I could borrow two and so employ both of you,” remarkedHerbert, with a glance at James, who was sprucely dressed and wore aflower in his buttonhole.
“None for me, thank you,” said James, with a look of disgust. “I don’tintend to become a laborer.”
“You’ll have to labor if you study law,” said Cameron.
“That’s genteel; besides I don’t call it labor. Shall we go on, Mr.Cameron?”
“Not just yet. I want to watch Herbert a little longer.”
So he lingered, much to the dissatisfaction of James.
“Won’t you go out rowing?” he asked, when they were walking away.
“I have no objection,” said Cameron; and they spent an hour on the pond.
“Do you think I can get into the crew if I go to Yale?” asked James,complacently.
“I should say not, unless you improve in rowing.”
“Don’t I row well?”
“There is considerable room for improvement. However, you have timeenough for that.”
They were cruising near the shore when a boy of ten came down to thebank and called out to them.
“James,” he said, “will you let me go across in the boat with you?”
“Why should I?” demanded James, not very amicably, for the boy belongedto what he termed the lower classes.
“Do let me,” urged the boy. “I left mother very sick and went for thedoctor. She was all alone and I want to get back as soon as I can.”
By the road the boy would have to walk about a mile and a quarter, whilehe could be rowed across the pond in six or seven minutes.
“I can’t take anybody and everybody in my boat,” said James,disagreeably. “Go ahead and walk.”
“How can you refuse the boy, when he wants to get home to his sickmother?” said Cameron, indignantly. “Jump in, my boy, and we’ll take youover.”
“I don’t know about that,” said James, sullenly.
“Look here!” said Cameron, shortly. “Refuse this boy and I shall getout of the boat immediately and refuse hereafter to be seen in yourcompany.”
James was disagreeably surprised.
“Jump in, my boy,” said Cameron, kindly.
“Thank you, sir,” said the boy, gratefully. James was not a littlemortified at the snubbing he had received, but he did not venture toexpostulate.
Cameron was fond of boating, but did not care to be indebted to Jamesfor the loan of his boat.
“I’ll have a boat sent on to me,” he secretly determined, “and when Ileave Wrayburn I’ll give it to Herbert.”