omething else to do----but no, never mind, you won't like
that."

"What is it?"

"Why, I was thinking about the young un's. They're shocking back'ard in
their eddication, and, between you and me, the missus makes them
back'arder. I don't understand the way she has got of larning 'em at
all. I don't want to make scholards of 'em. Nobody would but a fool.
Bless 'em, they'll have enough to do to get their bread with sweating
and toiling, without addling their brains about things they can't
understand. But it is a cruelty, mind you, for a parent to hinder his
child from reading his Bible on a Sunday afternoon, and to make him
stand ashamed of himself before his fellow workman when he grows up, and
finds that he can't put _paid_ to a bill on a Saturday night. The boys
should all know how to read and write, and keep accounts, and a little
summut of human nature. This is what I wants to give 'em, and nobody
should I like better to put it into 'em than you, my old friend, if
you'd just take the trouble 'till you've got something better to do."

"Thompson," I answered instantly, "I will do it with pleasure. I ought
to have made the offer. It did not occur to me. I shall rejoice to repay
you, in this trifling way, for all your good feeling and kindness."

"Oh no!" answered my friend, "none of that. We must have an
understanding. Don't you think I should have asked the question, if I
meant to sneak out in that dirty sort of way. No, that won't do. It's
very kind of you, but we must make all that right. We sha'n't quarrel, I
dare say. If you mean you'll do it, I have only just a word or two to
say before you begin."

"I shall be proud to serve you, Thompson, and on any terms you please."

"Well, it is a serving me--I don't deny it--but, mind you, only till you
have dropped into something worth your while. What I wish to say is as
this: As soon as ever my missus hears of what you are going to do, I
know as well what she'll be at as I know what I am talking of now.
She'll just be breaking my heart to have the boys larned French. Now,
I'd just as soon bind 'em apprentice to that ere Clayton. I've seen too
much of that ere sort of thing in my time. I'm as positive as I sit
here, that when a chap begins to talk French he loses all his English
spirit, and feels all over him as like a mounseer as possible. I'm sure
he does. I've seen it a hundred times, and that I couldn't a-bear.
Besides, I've been told that French is the language