"No, Billy," I replied, "I forgot him; but then, you know, Daniel is
more of a student than a business man, and--"

"Oh, Uncle Teddy! you don't think I mean he'd support them? I meant
I'd have to take care of father and mother and him, too, when they'd
all got to be old people together. Just think! I'm eleven, and he's
twenty-two; so he is just twice as old as I am. How old are you?"

"Forty, Billy, last August."

"Well, you aren't so awful old, and when I get to be as old as you,
Daniel will be eighty. Seth Kendall's grandfather isn't more than
that, and he has to be fed with a spoon, and a nurse puts him to bed,
and wheels him round in a chair like a baby. That takes the stamps, I
bet! Well, I tell you how I'll keep my accounts: I'll have a stick
like Robinson Crusoe, and every time I make a toadskin I'll gouge a
piece out of one side of the stick, and every time I spend one I'll
gouge a piece out of the other."

"Spend a _what?_" said the gentle and astonished voice of my sister
Lu, who, unperceived, had slipped into the room.

"A toadskin, ma," replied Billy, shutting up Oolburn with a farewell
glance of contempt.

"Dear, dear! Where does the boy learn such horrid words?"

"Why, ma, don't you know what a toadskin is? Here's one," said Billy,
drawing a dingy five-cent stamp from his pocket. "And don't I wish I
had lots of 'em!"