Suppose I said right now that I wanted a hundred dollars! Dick went on.
Why er ahem. Mr. Slocum looked about
him for guidance.
We would be compelled to ask what you wanted it for, answered Mr. Crockett.
And suppose, Dick said very slowly, looking Mr. Crockett squarely in the eyes, suppose I said that I was very sorry, but that I did not care to say what I wanted it for?
Then you wouldnt get it, Mr. Crockett said so immediately that there was a hint of testiness and snap in his manner.
Dick nodded slowly, as if letting the information sink in.
But, of course, my boy, Mr. Slocum took up hastily, you understand you are too young to handle money yet. We must decide that for you.
You mean I cant touch a penny without your permission?
Not a penny, Mr. Crockett snapped.
Dick nodded his head thoughtfully and murmured, Oh, I see.
Of course, and quite naturally, it would only be fair, you know, you will have a small allowance for your personal spending, Mr. Davidson said. Say, a dollar, or, perhaps, two dollars, a week. As you grow older this allowance will be increased. And by the time you are twenty-one, doubtlessly you will be fully qualified with advice, of course to handle your own affairs.
And until I am twenty-one my twenty million wouldnt buy me a hundred dollars to do as I please with? Dick queried very subduedly.
Mr. Davidson started to corroborate in soothing phrases, but was waved to silence by Dick, who continued:
As I understand it, whatever money I handle will be by agreement between the four of us?
The Board of Guardians nodded.
That is, whatever we agree, goes?
Again the Board of Guardians nodded.
Well, Id like to have a hundred right now, Dick announced.
What for? Mr. Crockett demanded.
I dont mind telling you, was the lads steady answer. To go traveling.
Youll go to bed at eight-thirty this evening, Mr. Crockett retorted. And you dont get any hundred. The lady we spoke to you about will be here before six. She is to have, as we explained, daily and hourly charge of you. At six-thirty, as usual, you will dine, and she will dine with you and see you to bed. As we told you, she will have to serve the place of a mother to you see that your ears are clean, your neck washed
And that I get my Saturday night bath, Dick amplified meekly for him.
Precisely.
How much are you am I paying the lady for her services? Dick questioned in the disconcerting, tangential way that was already habitual to him, as his school companions and teachers had learned to their cost.
Mr. Crockett for the first time cleared his throat for pause.
Im paying her, aint I? Dick prodded. Out of the twenty million, you know.
The spit of his father, said Mr. Slocum in an aside.
Mrs. Summerstone, the lady as you elect to call her, receives one hundred and fifty a month, eighteen hundred a year in round sum, said Mr. Crockett.
Its a waste of perfectly good money, Dick sighed. And board and lodging thrown in!
He stood up not the born aristocrat of the generations, but the reared aristocrat of thirteen years in the Nob Hill palace. He stood up with such a manner that his Board of Guardians left their leather chairs to stand up with him. But he stood up as no Lord Fauntleroy ever stood up; for he was a mixer. He had knowledge that human life was many-faced and many-placed. Not for nothing had he been spelled down by Mona Sanguinetti. Not for nothing had he fought Tim Hagan to a standstill and, co-equal, ruled the schoolyard roost with him.
He was birthed of the wild gold-adventure of Forty-nine. He was a reared aristocrat and a grammar-school-trained democrat. He knew, in his precocious immature way, the differentiations between caste and mass; and, behind it all, he was possessed of a will of his own and of a quiet surety of self that was incomprehensible to the three elderly gentlemen who had been given charge of his and his destiny and who had pledged themselves to increase his twenty millions and make a man of him in their own composite image.
Thank you for your kindness, Young Dick said generally to the three. I guess well get along all right. Of course, that twenty millions is mine, and of course youve got to take care of it for me, seeing I know nothing of business
And well increase it for you, my boy, well increase it for you in safe, conservative ways, Mr. Slocum assured him.
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