Samuel Edward Wilkinson, when I first knew him, was a small boy of
twelve who, in the privacy of the back garden of a small provincial
grammar-school, ate tarts and apples which he never shared with his
school-fellows. He was the last of a large family--I think his mother
succumbed to the strain of bearing him, the tenth or eleventh--and he
had the look of a starved fox which is not quite certain where the
nearest hen-roost is. The costume of small boys in those days--the
early forties--did not suit him; the tassel of his peaked cap was too
much dependent upon his right eyebrow, and the left leg of his nankeen
trousers was at least an inch and a half higher than its corresponding
member.
"Poskitt," he said to me, the first time that I ever indulged in any
real private conversation with him, "what shall you do when you leave
Doctor Scott's?"
"Go home," said I.
He was eating one of his usual jam-tarts at the time, and he looked at
me sideways over a sticky edge of it.
"Poskitt--what's your father?" he asked.
"My father's a farmer--but it's our own land," said I.
He finished his tart--thoughtfully. Then he took out a quite clean
handkerchief and wiped the tips of his fingers on it. He looked round,
more thoughtfully than before, at the blank walls of Doctor Scott's back
garden. I was sensible enough even at that age to see that he was
regarding far-away things.
"My father," he said, after an obvious cogitation, "is a butcher. He
makes a lot of money, Poskitt. But there are eleven of us. I am the
eleventh. When I leave school----"
He stopped short there, and from his trousers pocket drew out two
apples. You may think that he was going to give me one--instead of that
he looked them over, selected what he evidently considered the best, bit
into it, and put the other back in his pocket.
"When I leave school," he resumed, "I mean to go into business. Now,
what do you think of business, Poskitt?"
I was so astonished, boy as I was, to hear this miserable mannikin
talking as he did, that I dare say I only gaped at him. Between his
bites at his apple he continued his evidences of a shrewd character.
"You see, Poskitt," he said, "I've thought a great deal while I've been
here at Doctor Scott's. I don't think much of Doctor Scott--he's very
kind, but he doesn't tell any of us how to make money. Your father's
got a lot of money, hasn't he?"
"How do you know?" I said, rather angrily.
"Because," said he, quite calmly, "I see him give you money when he
comes to see you. Nobody gives money away who hasn't got it. And you
see, Poskitt, although my father makes a lot of money, too, he doesn't
give me much--sixpence a week."
"How do you get your tarts and your apples, then?" I asked.