Samuel Boyd of Catchpole Square: A Mystery

"That's a pity," echoed the young man, with distinct indifference.

"Well, then," said the Inspector, bracing himself up for a great effort, "as you have no business to be here unless you have business to be here-" This was so involved that it brought him to a full stop; scratching his head with whimsical perplexity he extricated himself from the difficulty by adding, "The best thing you can do is to clear out."

The young man, deciding that he had sufficiently rested one foot, lowered it, and lifted the other upon the bench. This was the only movement he made.

The Inspector resumed his writing with the manner of a man driven to a helpless pass. A peculiar feature of the defeat he had met with was that it did not seem to anger him. Presently he spoke again.

"I don't often get into a temper, Dick."

"Not often."

"But when I do," said the Inspector, with an anticipatory chuckle, "it's a thing to remember."

"When you do, uncle, I'll remember it."

The Inspector finished the charge sheet, tidied up his papers, and looking over his shoulder at Dick, suddenly burst out laughing.

Dick's face cleared; a light stole into his eyes; his lips quivered. These tokens of serious emotion were like the passing of a cloud. The next moment he joined the Inspector in the laugh, and the storm was at an end.

"Where are you going to sleep, Dick?"

"Let me see," Dick answered. "Buckingham Palace sounds tempting; there must be several beds unoccupied there. Could a fellow get between the sheets of one? Do you think it might be managed? I hope they keep a fire in the rooms and the sheets well aired."

"Don't be a fool."

"Can I help it?"

"No, Dick, no," said the inspector, advancing and laying his hand kindly upon Dick's shoulder. "Upon my soul I don't believe you can."

Dick lifted his eyes, with an implied suggestion that the Inspector, by the barest possibility, might be mistaken; but he did not put this into words.

"I can't take you home with me," said the Inspector. "Aunt Rob won't have it. She's put her foot down, and when she puts her foot down, why, there it is."

The comic helplessness expressed in this obvious statement seemed to amuse Dick, but he said, gravely enough, "Yes, there it is."

"And there's Florence."

At the introduction of this name a look of sad tenderness stole into Dick's eyes, but he said calmly, "Ah, and there's Florence."

"Now, Dick, let us have this out, once and for all."

"I'm agreeable."

"It's altogether too bad," exclaimed the Inspector. "What with you and Florence, bless her! and Aunt Rob, I haven't a moment's peace of my life. What Aunt Rob says is this. 'Here's Dick Remington,' she says, 'that you've behaved as a father to, and that I've behaved as a mother to. Ever since he was left an orphan, having lost his father, then his mother-you were three years old when my poor sister died-he's lived with us as one of our own, and so we've treated him. He had a claim upon us, and that claim we've met.' And she says-her foot being down-'It's time Dick looked after himself.' She gave you a hint, which you took pretty quick. I'll say that of you; you took it almost too quick."

"What else could I do?"

"It was a mistake, Dick, to get into a huff as you did. The minute she began to speak you took her up sharp-and if there's one thing more than another that puts her back up it is to be took up sharp. You see, Dick, it's a delicate matter. Aunt Rob says, 'We must think of Florence. She comes first.' And she's right, Dick."

"She is, uncle. Florence comes first-always first!"

"'Here's Dick,' says Aunt Rob, 'that I'm as fond of as if he was my own son, what is he good for? What prospects has he got? He's been in one situation and another, and never keeps to one thing for more than a few weeks at a time. Here he is, a grown man, and here is Florence, almost a grown woman.' To think of it!" said Inspector Robson, pensively, breaking off. "It was only yesterday that she was in short frocks, going backward and forward to school, and climbing up on my knee to pull my whiskers, and cuddling up in my arms, and singing her little songs in a voice as sweet as music. And now! a grown woman! To think of it-to think of it!"

"Loving you no less as a woman, uncle, than she did as a child."

"I know it, my lad, I know it, but it sets a man on the think."

And Inspector Robson fell forthwith into a brown study which lasted quite five minutes, during which the image of his only child, most tenderly and dearly beloved, presented itself to him in its sweetest and most engaging aspects.

CHAPTER VIII

AUNT ROB THINKS FLORENCE OUGHT TO MARRY A MARQUIS OR A PRINCE

Dick Remington waited patiently to hear the full sum of the reproaches which Aunt Rob brought against him. He, too, saw with his mind's eye the image of the young girl for whom he would have laid down his life, and if his thoughts of her brought a pang to his heart they were at the same time charged with exceeding tenderness.

Inspector Robson shook himself free from dreams, and returned to his subject.

"That is what Aunt Rob says. 'Here is Dick a grown man, and here is Florence almost a grown woman. When Dick comes down in the morning he kisses Florence and she kisses him; and when he bids her good night he kisses her again. And,' says Aunt Rob, 'I don't know that this is a thing that ought to be allowed to go on.' I dare say it's puzzled other people as well as us when kissing ought to be left off. So long as you were little it was as natural as natural could be. You were playmates and chums, and you rolled on the floor together and played coach and horses and London Bridge is Falling Down, and you'd carry her on your shoulder and lift her as high as the ceiling, and throw her up and catch her, she screaming with delight and crying, 'Again, Dick, again!' You grew up, Dick, and when you were eighteen Florence was only twelve, and the kissing went on, and there was nothing to object to. But you got to be twenty and Florence fourteen, and the kissing went on. Then her frocks were lengthened, and the pair of you continued to grow up till she was nineteen and you twenty-five-and all this time the kissing went on. Now, Dick, there must come a time when, even between cousins, kissing must stop. Sometimes it's done gradual, sometimes all of a sudden, which makes things a bit awkward-but one way or the other it's got to be done. You must see that yourself, Dick."

"Yes, I suppose so, uncle."

"And Aunt Rob has got an eye to the future. Pretty girls like Florence don't grow on every gooseberry bush. Show me the girl that can compare with her. Do you know of one, Dick?"

"Not one in all the wide world," replied the young man. "God bless her, and make her happy!"

"She's been brought up sensible," said Inspector Robson. "She can make a beef steak pudding and play the piano; there's nothing she can't turn her hand to, and the man that gets her will be a lucky chap. Aunt Rob thinks a gentleman born would not be too good for her. 'Why not say a marquis, or a prince?' says I to her, speaking sarcastic like. And she bridles up and answers, 'Why not? He might do worse; he couldn't do better.'"

"No gentleman in the land," said Dick, with a tremor in his voice, "could be too good for Florence. She's equal to the best, and could hold her own among the best, even if they were born in a palace."

"That's what Aunt Rob thinks," said Inspector Robson, his eyes glowing with loving pride, "and that's what we all think, and who that knows Florence could think differently? But let's come back to you, Dick, for that's the main point. Why don't you stick to one thing, my lad?"

"Perhaps because it won't stick to me," Dick replied.

"Nonsense, nonsense, lad, it's the other way about. Do you recollect the morning you went to your first situation, and how we all stood at the street door to see you off? There was Florence and Aunt Rob waving their handkerchiefs and kissing their hands to you till you were out of sight. You kept that situation seven months, and then you threw it up. You didn't like the place, you said. All right. You got another situation, as traveller on commission in the sewing machine line. You commenced well, and was earning your fifteen shillings a week. What was our surprise when you came home one night and told us you'd left because it wouldn't suit you? The next thing you took to was the stage, and you gave us tickets to come and see you act. We rehearsed at home, and Florence gave you the cues. As for your make-up as you call it, you did it so cleverly that we didn't know you when you come on the stage. 'That's what he's cut out for,' I said. 'One of these days he'll have a theatre of his own.' But Aunt Rob shook her head. You wrote a little piece in one act, and got it played-actually got it played. We thought it beautiful, and the way Florence laughed and cried over it-well! But it wasn't a success for all that. Still, you know, Dick, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. You didn't try again. You gave up the stage-"

Dick interposed with, "Or it gave up me."

"Anyway you left it. Your next move was clerk to Mr. Samuel Boyd of Catchpole Square."

"Ah!" said Dick, and there was a look of inquiry in his eyes as he fixed them upon the Inspector.

"You may well say 'Ah,' for from what's known of him he's not the kind of man one would be proud to serve. What made you go to him?"

"I was hard up, and had been trying for a couple of months to get in somewhere. I was curious about him, too: thought he would do for a character that I could make up like if I ever went on the stage, or could use if ever I wrote another play." He spoke with apparent carelessness, but with a covert observance of the Inspector while he gave this explanation.

"It didn't surprise me that you remained with him only three months. When you left him you took to writing for the papers, and we read your paragraphs and articles with wonder at your cleverness. You don't do much in that way now, Dick?"

"Not much," said Dick, with a smile, "but I haven't given it up entirely. There is always the future."