"But I did know you!" cried the bonhomme. "I knew you in knowing your mother."
Ah! my mother again. When the old man begins that chapter I feel like telling him to blow out his candle and go to bed.
"At all events," he continued, "we must make the most of the years that remain. I'm a poor sick old fellow, but I've no notion of dying. You'll not get tired of me and want to go away?"
"I'm devoted to you, sir," I said. "But I must be looking up some work, you know."
"Work! Bah! I'll give you work. I'll give you wages."
"I'm afraid," I said, with a smile, "that you'll want to give me the wages without the work." And then I declared that I must go up and look at poor Theodore.
The bonhomme still kept my hands. "I wish very much," he said, "that I could get you to love me as well as you do poor Theodore."
"Ah, don't talk about love, Mr. Sloane. I'm no lover."
"Don't you love your friend?"
"Not as he deserves."
"Nor as he loves you, perhaps?"
"He loves me, I'm afraid, far more than I deserve."
"Well, Max," my host pursued, "we can be good
