"I'll make it a V for Beau," said Pontotoc Bibb, "if he gives him a
rub on the raw like that another lick. Durn a mean man, Cleburn!"

"Come down, Northerner," pressed the incorrigible loafer again; "it
don't become a Right Honorable to be so mean with old Beau."

The little boy on crutches, who had been looking at this scene in a
state of suspense and interest for some time, here cried hotly:

"If you say Mr. Reybold is a mean man, you tell a story, you nasty
beggar! He often gives things to me and Joyce, my sister. He's just
got me work, which is the best thing to give; don't you think so,
gentlemen?"

"Work," said Lowndes Cleburn, "is the best thing to give away, and the
most onhandy thing to keep. I like play the best--Beau's kind o'
play."

"Yes," said Jeroboam Coffee; "I think I prefer to make the chips fly
out of a table more than out of a log."

"I like to work!" cried the little boy, his hazel eyes shining, and
his poor, narrow body beating with unconscious fervor, half suspended
on his crutches, as if he were of that good descent and natural spirit
which could assert itself without bashfulness in the presence of older
people. "I like to work for my mother. If I was strong, like other
little boys, I would make money for her, so that she shouldn't keep
any boarders--except Mr. Reybold. Oh! she has to work a lot; but she's
proud and won't tell anybody. All the money I get I mean to give her;