They could afford to take this trip, and there was no reason why they shouldn't take it.
When I told them this, Uncle Chipperton flashed up in a minute, and said that that was all stuff and nonsense,--the trip shouldn't cost me a cent.

What was the sense, he said, of thinking of a few dollars when such pleasure was in view?
He would see that I had no money-troubles, and if that was all, I could go just as well as not.

Didn't he owe me thousands of dollars?
All this was very kind, but it didn't suit me.

I knew that he did not owe me a cent, for if I had done anything for him, I made no charge for it.

And even if I had been willing to let him pay my expenses,--which I wasn't,--my father would never have listened to it.
So I thanked him, but told him the thing couldn't be worked in that way, and I said it over and over again, until, at last, he believed it.
Then he offered to lend me the money necessary, but this offer I had to decline, too.