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The evening of the day of the conversation between
the cousins, recorded in the last chapter, in
the back room of a one-story domicile, annexed to
the store of Solomon Beckford, and called by himself
his parlour, sat that worthy, before a consumptive-looking
tallow candle, as thin as Calvin Edson,
with a newspaper—which he had that day obtained
at his brother's office—in his hand; for he held,
when he debated the matter with himself, that to
subscribe to a newspaper was beyond his means,
while his public remark was, that he could not conscientiously
do such a thing, as, from the state of
the press nowadays, it would be a downright assistance
in the propagation of falsehood. An inventory
of the furniture of Mr. Beckford's parlour could
easily have been taken. It consisted of an old-fashioned
stuffed arm-chair, that his father had occupied
in his office, and which Solomon, after its wear
and tear of many years from his own proper person,
in which period nearly all the padding had disappeared
for want of a cover, was induced to have
covered with some damaged buckskin, as he found
out he could drive a good bargain with the leatherdealer
for that article, and with the saddler, who,
for the matter of a few old bridle-bits, agreed to

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dispose the buckskin in ship-shape. The next important
article was a cherry stained table, which had
once been emulous of looking like mahogany, but
which evidently, of late years, had no aspirations of
the kind, as in many places the staining had worn
entirely off. Two rush-bottom chairs were beside
it, which the dull candle scarcely rendered perceptible,
as the old miser refused to have it snuffed—
asserting that to snuff a candle was to waste it,
as it caused it to burn out. A patched rag carpet
covered the floor, whose various dingy hues seemed
a reflection of the walls, for here and there in spots
they exhibited paper where it had been left, and
plaster where the paper had been torn off. Over
all—paper and plaster—a thin coat of whitewash
had been spread. Two windows, with many broken
panes, patched with as many coloured bits of paper,
looked out into a narrow yard filled with old sugar
barrels, candle boxes, and every kind of trumpery
that the rain could not injure—the accumulation of
years.

Though it was very early in the spring, and chilly
within doors when one was not exercising, no fire
had been allowed about the house save that with
which old Minty cooked the scanty meal; and now
a tea-kettle, from which the beverage for the evening
was to be prepared, simmered over a few half
burnt barrel-staves in the hearth, every now and
then, when the flame chanced to burn brighter than
its wont, making an ineffectual effort to boil.

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Old Beckford himself was a study for an artist,
as with meagre hands he grasped the paper, and
pored over it with intense yet apparently incredulous
curiosity. While he was yet reading Ralph entered,
and drawing one of the chairs from the table, seated
himself before the slender fire. Some minutes passed
without recognition on either part, when, just as the
old gentleman had got through with the paper, and
was folding it carefully up, Ralph said,

“Father, cousin Henry will start soon for college.”

The old man shot a quick glance over his spectacles
at his son, and exclaimed—

“I know it, by dad, I know it, Ralph—the most
idle expenditure in the world—it is worse than throwing
money away, much worse—it is a more criminal
act. It's true, if you throw your money away
it would harm yourself and perhaps help to ruin
some of these beggarly rascals”—Mr. Beckford held
a great hatred to beggars, because the bestowal of
charity would cost something—“who roam about
the streets picking pockets and gaping around for
what they can find that don't belong to them—it is
the way, no doubt, my black coat went. I had had
it for fifteen years—wore it at your mother's funeral—
and it was as good as new when I lost it—
when it was stolen. Yes, as I was saying, it will
be worse than throwing money away to send your
cousin to college—more criminal—it will ruin him,—
as sure as you live it will ruin him, Ralph. Your

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uncle—my eldest brother—Preston, who is dead,
was ruined by colleges and high company. The
money he squandered, Ralph, would ruin a nabob—
and his miserable end,—I have told you of it often—
it has been a lesson to me.”

“Well, I want to be ruined too, father.”

“What!” exclaimed the old man, starting in evident
surprise, though he seemed half to suspect what
was coming from the first, “you are for being
ruined too, are you?—well, you may be assured,
Mr. Ralph, that you shall not be ruined with my
consent and connivance—no, sir, not with my consent
and connivance—that sin I shall not have registered
against me. Has all my instruction and
advice come to this? Bless my soul! by dad, when,
from your childhood, I have been impressing upon
you the folly—the criminality—the inevitable criminality—
of colleges. But, suppose it was all right—
colleges were even proper—the expense—the expense,
Ralph, would beggar me in my old age. I
make little in the store—it just keeps soul and body
together; and if you were staying at home now—
at meals, I mean—instead of living with your uncle,
Minty, and Jeremiah, and the rest, would eat me
out of house and home.”

“`The rest,' I suppose you mean that for me father,”
interrupted the son indignantly—“but father
that cannot be; there is Stockbridge Farm of three
hundred acres, that brings in much from marketing—
there are your four houses in Fifth street—the
house and two lots in Seventh, and—”

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“By dad, sir, have you been taking an inventory
of my property to cast up into my teeth, you ungrateful
boy; the two lots, pray sir, have you ascertained
what they bring me in—answer me that, sir,
have you ascertained what they bring me in?”

“No sir, I have not exactly!”

“Well sir, they exactly bring me into expense—
the ground rents of these and other lots, unimproved
property, swallow up everything.”

“Why, father, I understood that Day, the stonecutter,
gave you a very handsome rent for the lots
on Seventh.”

“Who told you?”

“Day himself, sir!”

“Do not believe him, he lies—he would cheat the
Apostle Paul, he would rob a church, a grave yard;
he charged me an enormous sum for a useless vault
for your mother; God only knows how many years
rent it took.”

“Father,” said Ralph, whom the turn the conversation
had taken, and the way his mother's name was
introduced, had emboldened,—“I know all that you
would tell me; and more, I know that your income
must be upwards of nine thousand dollars a year;
and I have no doubt that there is more than enough
in this room at this moment, to pay my college expenses
over and over.”

The old miser looked aghast, uttered a loud exclamation,
and then recovering himself, and darting
a suspicious eye round the room, at the windows and

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towards the store, he sunk his voice to an hysteric
whisper, saying hurriedly:—

“Do you want me murdered—do you want the
prying knaves who haunt our city to overhear you,
and slip in, in the dead of night and butcher me in
cold blood, for the money that I have not got,” continued
the old man, raising his voice at the end of
the sentence with the determination that if any person
or persons, had overheard their conversation, he
or they should certainly hear that he had no money.
“But, son Ralph,” proceeded the father, edging his
chair close to his son's, glancing round and speaking
in a whisper,—“who told you, God bless me, who
told you all this?”

“My uncle, sir, not half an hour ago; and he told
me also, that if you would not send me to college he
would.”

“Let him,” interrupted the father; “if he has no
conscientious scruples concerning colleges, I have;
and if any ill comes of vicious habits caught there,
be the sin upon his head.”

“I replied, sir, that I could not, would not be beholden
to him for everything, and that as some remuneration
for his more than fatherly conduct towards
me, I would bind myself by every obligation,
moral and legal, to deed, when I am of age, that
house and lot to him, which you conveyed to my
mother, in consideration that she would sign away
her right of dower in other property, and which is

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mine own at twenty-one; it will not remunerate my
uncle, I fear it is but a pittance.”

“Pittance,” ejaculated the old man, “bless my
soul! the property is worth at least seven thousand
dollars. It was temper and wilfulness in your mother
that defrauded me of that very property; and
you are just as she was, and so is your uncle. I shall
be cheated and bamboozled in my very grave.”

“I'll bid you good night, father,” said Ralph,
rising and preparing to depart.

“Stay, boy, stay awhile, you must not be so hasty
in your doings and conclusions. Your uncle will
certainly che—; contrive to get from you double
the value of what he advances; your prodigal,
squandering men are ever of that character—avaricious
in gaining to spend like water. You do not
know the world yet; I tell you, Ralph, I am your
father, and I will do for you. If you will give me
your word, and bind yourself in writing, to fulfil the
contract the moment you come of age, to deed me
that property, if I advance you the money, my dear
son, the money shall be advanced, that is, understand
me, a reasonable sum.”

Ralph who could not but internally smile, while
he pitied his father and felt mortified with him, said:

“Oh! certainly, a reasonable sum, father; at least
seven thousand, if I should want it.”

“Seven thousand devils, if you should want them,”
exclaimed the old man, snatching his spectacles from
his nose, rising hastily, and pacing to and fro on the

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floor; “you'll be ruined, I see it; the wasteful notions
you have acquired, are prodigal to a degree—
sinful; there will be the visitation of some awful calamity
upon you; you, at this rate with your notions,
will be reduced to poverty, to hunger, to wretchedness,
to want of food and raiment, to a dunghill. I
shall be in my grave before then, but I leave you no
heir of mine. It would be a spitting in the face of
providence, that after the toil of a long life has
blessed me with some gains, to leave it to your
squandering; I shall educate the heathen with it, or
build churches; I have been a sinner and I know it,
and who has lived a long life that is not a sinner;
such bequest may be something of an atonement;
to give it to a prodigal heir, who in viciousness
would spend it, would be an enormity in the eye of
heaven.”

“As you choose, father. I have lived without it
so far, and I can continue to live without it. Good
night, sir.”

“Stay, boy, stay. I suppose you think you can live
upon your house and lot for ever? I'll be reasonable
with you; it may be worth half the sum named—
that is now—but if in the progress of years, property
should fall, what then? and it may fall; there
is no knowing what may turn up. I might have
turned many a pretty penny with that house and lot,
by barter, exchange, mortgage, and what not, had
it not been for the wilfulness of your mother.”

“My mother is in her grave, father, and let her
rest.”

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