This was followed by a lump in his throat that nearly strangled him.

He left his chair and touched Pawson on the shoulder.
"Does this mean, Mr.Pawson--this money being locked up in the bank vaults and not coming out for months--and may be never--does it mean that Mr.Temple--well, that Uncle George--won't have enough money to live on ?" There was an anxious, vibrant tone in Harry's voice that aroused St.George to a sense of the boy's share in the calamity and the privations he must suffer because of it.

Pawson hesitated and was about to belittle the gravity of the situation when St.George stopped him.
"Yes--tell him--tell him everything, I have no secrets from Mr.Rutter.
Stop!--I'll tell him.

It means, Harry"-- and a brave smile played about his lips--"that we will have to live on hog and hominy, may be, or pretty nigh it--certainly for a while--not bad, old fellow, when you get accustomed to it.

Aunt Jemima makes very good hominy and--" He stopped; the brave smile had faded from his face.
"By Jove!--that's something I didn't think of!--What will I do with the dear old woman--It would break her heart--and Todd ?" Here was indeed something on which he had not counted! For him to forego the luxuries that enriched his daily life was easy--he had often in his hunting trips lived for weeks on sweet potato and a handful of cornmeal, and slept on the bare ground with only a blanket over him, but that his servants should be reduced to similar privations suggested possibilities which appalled him.