BOOK THE SECOND - REAPING
7. Chapter Vii - Gunpowder (continued)
'Oh! Mr. Harthouse,' said Tom with a groan, 'I am hard up, and
bothered out of my life.'
'My good fellow, so am I.'
'You!' returned Tom. 'You are the picture of independence. Mr.
Harthouse, I am in a horrible mess. You have no idea what a state
I have got myself into - what a state my sister might have got me
out of, if she would only have done it.'
He took to biting the rosebuds now, and tearing them away from his
teeth with a hand that trembled like an infirm old man's. After
one exceedingly observant look at him, his companion relapsed into
his lightest air.
'Tom, you are inconsiderate: you expect too much of your sister.
You have had money of her, you dog, you know you have.'
'Well, Mr. Harthouse, I know I have. How else was I to get it?
Here's old Bounderby always boasting that at my age he lived upon
twopence a month, or something of that sort. Here's my father
drawing what he calls a line, and tying me down to it from a baby,
neck and heels. Here's my mother who never has anything of her
own, except her complaints. What is a fellow to do for money, and
where am I to look for it, if not to my sister?'
He was almost crying, and scattered the buds about by dozens. Mr.
Harthouse took him persuasively by the coat.
'But, my dear Tom, if your sister has not got it - '
'Not got it, Mr. Harthouse? I don't say she has got it. I may
have wanted more than she was likely to have got. But then she
ought to get it. She could get it. It's of no use pretending to
make a secret of matters now, after what I have told you already;
you know she didn't marry old Bounderby for her own sake, or for
his sake, but for my sake. Then why doesn't she get what I want,
out of him, for my sake? She is not obliged to say what she is
going to do with it; she is sharp enough; she could manage to coax
it out of him, if she chose. Then why doesn't she choose, when I
tell her of what consequence it is? But no. There she sits in his
company like a stone, instead of making herself agreeable and
getting it easily. I don't know what you may call this, but I call
it unnatural conduct.'
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