Part 2 (1/2)

”My name is Ashby. Ashby Truesdale. We come from an old English family.

What is your name, and what kind of family do you come from, Mister?”

”And where do you live?”

The lad wheeled, and strode to the edge of the rock,--the path along there is blasted out of solid rock,--and looking downward, he pointed to the first row of buildings in the distant flats.

”We live down there. You see that house in the middle of the block, the little old one between the two big ones?”

The man did not feel sure.

”Well, Mister, you see the statue of Was.h.i.+ngton and Lafayette?”

The man was certain he saw Was.h.i.+ngton and Lafayette.

”Well, from there you follow my finger along the row of houses till you come to the littlest, oldest, dingiest one. You see it now, don't you?

We live up under the roof.”

”What is the number?”

”It isn't any number. It's half a number. We live in the half that isn't numbered; the other half gets the number.”

”And you take your music lessons in one half?”

”Why, yes, Mister. Why not?”

”On a piano?”

”Why, yes, Mister; on _my_ piano.”

”Oh, you have a piano, have you?”

”There isn't any sound in about half the keys. Granny says the time has come to rent a better one. She has gone over to the art school to-day to pose to get the money.”

A chill of silence fell between the talkers, the one looking up and the other looking down. The man's next question was put in a more guarded tone:

”Does your mother pose as a model?”

”No, Mister, she doesn't pose as a model. She's posing as herself. She said I must have a teacher. Mister, were _you_ ever poor?”

The man looked the boy over from head to foot.

”Do you think you are poor?” he asked.

The good-natured reply came back in a droll tone:

”Well, Mister, we certainly aren't rich.”

”Let us see,” objected the man, as though this were a point which had better not be yielded, and he began with a voice of one reckoning up items: ”Two feet, each cheap at, say, five millions. Two hands--five millions apiece for hands. At least ten millions for each eye. About the same for the ears. Certainly twenty millions for your teeth. Forty millions for your stomach. On the whole, at a rough estimate you must easily be worth over one hundred millions. There are quite a number of old gentlemen in New York, and a good many young ones, who would gladly pay that amount for your investments, for your securities.”

The lad with eager upturned countenance did not conceal his amus.e.m.e.nt while the man drew this picture of him as a living ragged gold-mine, as actually put together and made up of pieces of fabulous treasure. A child's notion of wealth is the power to pay for what it has not. The wealth that childhood _is_, escapes childhood; it does not escape the old. What most concerned the lad as to these priceless feet and hands and eyes and ears was the hard-knocked-in fact that many a time he ached throughout this reputed treasury of his being for a five-cent piece, and these reputed millionaires, acting together and doing their level best, could not produce one.