was all sympathy when she did speak.

"What you need, you realize yourself, and it is education. You should go
back and finish grammar school, and then go through to high school and
university."

"But that takes money," he interrupted.

"Oh!" she cried. "I had not thought of that. But then you have
relatives, somebody who could assist you?"

He shook his head.

"My father and mother are dead. I've two sisters, one married, an' the
other'll get married soon, I suppose. Then I've a string of
brothers,--I'm the youngest,--but they never helped nobody. They've just
knocked around over the world, lookin' out for number one. The oldest
died in India. Two are in South Africa now, an' another's on a whaling
voyage, an' one's travellin' with a circus--he does trapeze work. An' I
guess I'm just like them. I've taken care of myself since I was
eleven--that's when my mother died. I've got to study by myself, I
guess, an' what I want to know is where to begin."

"I should say the first thing of all would be to get a grammar. Your
grammar is--" She had intended saying "awful," but she amended it to "is
not particularly good."

He flushed and sweated.

"I know I must talk a lot of slang an' words you don't understand. But