said to Dicky--'You are a minor, I presume?'

Dicky said he wasn't yet, but he had thought of being a mining engineer
some day, and going to Klondike.

'Minor, not miner,' said the G. B. 'I mean you're not of age?'

'I shall be in ten years, though,' said Dicky. 'Then you might repudiate
the loan,' said the G. B., and Dicky said 'What?'

Of course he ought to have said 'I beg your pardon. I didn't quite
catch what you said'--that is what Oswald would have said. It is more
polite than 'What.'

'Repudiate the loan,' the G. B repeated. 'I mean you might say you
would not pay me back the money, and the law could not compel you to do
so.'

'Oh, well, if you think we're such sneaks,' said Dicky, and he got up
off his chair. But the G. B. said, 'Sit down, sit down; I was only
joking.'

Then he talked some more, and at last he said--'I don't advise you to
enter into that partnership. It's a swindle. Many advertisements are.
And I have not a hundred pounds by me to-day to lend you. But I will
lend you a pound, and you can spend it as you like. And when you are
twenty-one you shall pay me back.'

'I shall pay you back long before that,' said Dicky. 'Thanks, awfully!
And what about the note of hand?'