Elden; I can't do it," said Merton, and there was
moisture on his cheeks. "That would be charity--and I can't take it.
But I'm much obliged. It shows you're square, Mr. Elden, and I hold no
illwill to _you_."
"Well, can I help you in some way you _will_ accept? I'm afraid--I
don't mean to be unkind, but we may as well be frank--I'm afraid you
won't need help very long."
Merton answered as one who has made up his mind to the inevitable, and
Dave thought better of him. This little wreck of a man--this child in
business matters--could look death in the face without a quiver.
"Not so long," he said. "I felt ever so much better when I came here
first; I thought I was really going to be well again. But when I found
what a mistake I had made I began to worry, not for myself, you know,
but the boy, and worry is just what my trouble lives on. I have been
working a little, and boarding out, and the boy is going to school.
But I can't do heavy work, and work of any kind is hard to get. I find
I can't keep going that way."
Merton looked with dreamy eyes through the office window, while Dave
was turning over the hopelessness of his position, and inwardly cursing
a system which made such conditions possible. Society protects the
physically weak from the physically strong; the physical highwayman
usually gets his deserts; but the mental highwayman preys upon the weak
and the inexperienced and the unorganized, and Society votes him a good
citizen and a success.
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