minded for runnin' down Catholics. You think you're right about everything just because you're rich."
Paul was as snobbish as most boys of eleven, but he was also truthful. John Ashmill's father was rich, but to think of himself as rich was the height of absurdity.
"I am not," he contradicted.
"Yes you are," Mark insisted. "You own this house and a ship and the wharf and lots of things."
Paul laughed at his friend's ignorance. "My father did, but he's been dead ten years. He died at sea with yellow fever."
"Sure, and he left everything to your mother. When she died she left everything to you. There wasn't nobody else. It's all yours now."
"It is not." Paul had nothing to go by but a sense of the grotesqueness of his owning anything so big and useless. "He left me the gold watch that the queen gave him, but I'm not to have it till I can play the Liszt sonata."
"You ask Miss Windell."
Paul considered this. It would do no harm to ask Aunt Verona, and he certainly meant to. But he preferred to wait, for in the event of her saying yes he would lose the argument, which would be humiliating.
"I have to practise now," he finally announced.
Mark's appreciation of his music was the corner-stone of their friendship, and his eyes now dwelt on Paul in a sort of wistful envy, free from any taint of grudge.
"Can I stay here and listen?" he asked.
Paul melted. He could concede even an argument to such an eager friend. "Sure you can," he said, "if you want to."
"Play the Impromptu," Mark coaxed.
"The Schubert in A-flat?" Paul inquired. He couldn't resist this little parade of specialized lore.
"Yes—all runny."
