go from
the soft climate of the semi-tropics to the Northern or Middle States
until mild weather has fairly set in there. And that will not happen for
a month yet.

"Now, this is my plan. Let us all take a leisurely trip homeward by the
way of Mobile, and New Orleans and the Mississippi River. This will be
just the season, and we shall be just the party. What do you say?"

Everybody, but me, said it would be splendid. I had exactly the same
idea about it, but I didn't say so, for there was no use in it. I
couldn't go on a trip like that. I had been counting up my money that
morning, and found I would have to shave pretty closely to get home by
rail,--and I wanted, very much, to go that way--although it would be
cheaper to return by sea,--for I had a great desire to go through North
and South Carolina and Virginia, and see Washington. It would have
seemed like a shame to go back by sea, and miss all this. But, as I
said, I had barely enough money for this trip, and to make it I must
start the next day. And there was no use writing home for money. I knew
there was none there to spare, and I wouldn't have asked for it if there
had been. If there was any travelling money, some of the others ought to
have it. I had had my share.

It was very different with Rectus and the Chippertons. They could afford
to take this trip, and there was no reason why they shouldn't take it.

When I told them this, Uncle Chipperton flashed up in a minute, and said
that that was all stuff and nonsense,--the trip shouldn't cost me a
cent. What was the sense, he said, of thinking of a few dollars when
such pleasure was in view? He would see that I had no money-troubles,
and if that was all, I could go just as well as not. Didn't he owe me
thousands of dollars?

All this was very kind, but it didn't suit me. I knew that he did not
owe me a cent, for if I had done anything for him, I made no charge for
it. And even if I had been willing to let him pay my expenses,--which I
wasn't,--my father would never have listened to it.

So I thanked him, but told him the thing couldn't be worked in that
way, and I said it over and over again, until, at last, he believed it.
Then he offered to lend me the money necessary, but this offer I had to
decline, too. As I had no way of paying it back, I might as well have
taken it as a gift. There wasn't anything he could offer, after this,
except to get me a free pass; and as he had no way of doing that, he
gave