itor wanted to know anything
else, would he be kind enough to be quick, for Mr Spark's time was very
valuable?

"Quick as you like, sir," said Mr William Forth Burge, who showed the
new side of his character. "I've been in trade, and I know what's what.
Now, sir, I'm the friend of the boy's sister; father dead--mother a
baby. Business is business. Prosecute the boy, and you put him in
prison, and spend more money; you get none back. Forgive him, and take
him on again, and, if it's fifty pounds, I'll pay what's lost."

Then followed a long argument, out of which Mr William Forth Burge came
away a hundred pounds poorer, and with Percy Thorne free to begin the
world again, but handicapped with a blurred character.

That evening they were back at Plumton.

"But there's going to be no prosecution, or anything of that sort, Miss
Thorne; and, till we hear of something to suit him, he shall stop at my
house and do clerk's work in my office."

"But I feel sure you have been paying away money to extricate him from
this terrible difficulty, Mr Burge," cried Hazel.

"Well, and suppose I have," he said, smiling; "I've a right to do what I
like with my own money, and it's all spent for the benefit of our
schools."

"But, Mr Burge," cried Hazel eagerly, and speaking with the tears
running down her cheeks, "how can I ever repay you?"

"Oh, I'll send in my bill some day," he said hastily. "But as I was
going to say, Master Percy shall stay at my place for the present. I
could easily place him at a butcher's or a meat salesman's, but that
ain't genteel enough for a boy like him. So just you wait a bit and--"

"See," he would have said, but all this time he had been backing towards
the door to avoid Hazel's thanks, and he escaped before his final word
was spoken.

"There's something about that man I don't quite like," said Mrs Thorne
as soon as their visitor had gone.

"Not like him, dear?" cried Hazel wonderingly.

"No, my dear; there's a sort of underhandedness about him that isn't
nice."

"But, my dear mother, he has been up to town on purpose to extricate
Percy from a great difficulty, and, I feel sure," said Hazel warmly, "at
a great expense to himself."

"Yes, that's it!" exclaimed Mrs Thorne triumphantly. "And you mark my
words, Hazel, if he don't try to make us pay for it most heavily some
day."

"Oh, really, mother dear!"

"Now, don't contradict, Hazel, because you really cannot know so well as
I do