Young Blood

"What is that?"

"Write!"

Harry groaned. Mr. Walthew raised his eyebrows. Mrs. Ringrose sat triumphant.

"Write what, my dear Mary?"

"Articles – poems – books."

A grim resignation was given to Harry, and he laughed aloud as the clergyman shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

"On his own showing," said Uncle Spencer, "I should doubt whether he has – er – the education – for that."

Mrs. Ringrose looked displeased, and even dangerous, for the moment; but she controlled her feelings on perceiving that the boy himself was now genuinely amused.

"You are quite mistaken," she contented herself with saying. "Have I never shown you the parody on Gray's Elegy he won a guinea for when he was fourteen? Then I will now."

And the fond lady was on her feet, only to find her boy with his back to the door, and laughter, shame and anger fighting for his face.

"You shall do no such thing, mother," Harry said firmly. "That miserable parody!"

"It was nothing of the kind. It began, 'The schoolbell tolls the knell – '"

"Hush, mother!"

"'Of parting play'" she added wilfully.

Mr. Walthew's eyebrows had reached their apogee.

"That is quite enough, Mary," said he. "I disapprove of parodies, root and branch; they are invariably vulgar; and when the poem parodied has a distinctly religious tendency, as in this case, they are also irreverent and profane. I am only glad to see that Henry is himself ashamed of his lucubration. If he should write aught of a religious character, and get it into print – a difficult matter, Henry, for one so indifferently equipped – my satisfaction will not be lessened by my surprise. Meanwhile let him return to those classics he should never have neglected, for by the dead languages only can we hope to obtain a mastery of our own; and I, for my part, will do my best in what, after all, I regard as a much less hopeless direction. Good-bye, Mary. I trust that I shall see you both on Sunday."

But Mrs. Ringrose would not let him go without another word for her boy's parody.

"When I read it to Mr. Lowndes," said she, to Harry's horror, "he said that he thought that a lad who could write so well at fourteen should have a future before him. So you see everybody is not of your opinion, Spencer; and Mr. Lowndes saw nothing vulgar."

"Do I understand you to refer," said Mr. Walthew, bristling, "to the person who has done me the honour of calling upon me in connection with your affairs?"

"He is the only Mr. Lowndes I know."

"Then let me tell you, Mary, that his is not a name to conjure with in my hearing. I should say, however, that he is the last person to be a competent judge of vulgarity or – or other matters."

"Then you dislike him too?" cried poor Mrs. Ringrose.

"Do you?" said Mr. Walthew, turning to Harry; and uncle and nephew regarded one another for the first time with mutually interested eyes.

"Not I," said Harry stoutly. "He has been my mother's best friend."

"I am sorry to hear it," the clergyman said; "what's more, I don't believe it."

"But he has been and he is," insisted the lady; "you little know what he has done for me."

"I wouldn't trust his motives," said her brother. "I am sorry to say it, Mary; he is very glib and plausible, I know; but – he doesn't strike me as an honest man!"

Mrs. Ringrose was troubled and vexed, and took leave of the visitor with a face as sombre as his own; but as for Harry, he recalled his own feelings on the journey up, and he felt less out of sympathy with his uncle than he had ever done in his life before. But Mr. Walthew was not one to go without an irritating last word, and in the passage he had his chance. He had remarked on the packing cases, and Harry had dived into his mother's room and returned with an ostrich egg in each hand, of which he begged his uncle's acceptance, saying that he would send them by the parcels post. Mr. Walthew opened his eyes but shook his head.

"I could not dream of taking them from you," said he, "in – in your present circumstances, Henry."

"But I got them for nothing," said Harry, at once hurt and nettled. "I got a dozen of them, and any amount of assegais and things, all for love, when I was on the Zambesi. I should like you and my aunt to have something."

"Really I could not think of it; but, if I did, I certainly should not permit you to incur the expense of parcel postage."

"Pooh! uncle, it would only be sixpence or a shilling."

"Only sixpence or a shilling! As if they were one and the same thing! You talk like a millionaire, Henry, and it pains me to hear you, after the conversation we have had."

Harry wilfully observed that he never had been able to study the shillings, and his uncle stood shocked on the threshold, as indeed he was meant to be.

"Then it's about time," said he, "that you did learn to study them – and the sixpences – and the pence. You were smoking a pipe when I came. I confess I was surprised, not merely because the habit is a vile one, for it is unhappily the rule rather than the exception, but because it is also an extravagant habit. You may say – I have heard young men say – that it only costs you a few pence a week. Then, pray, study those few pence – and save them. It is your duty. And as for what you say you got for nothing, the ostrich eggs and so forth, take them and sell them at the nearest shop! That also is your bounden duty, unless you wish to be a burden to your mother in her poverty; and I am very sorry that you should compel me to tell you so by talking of not 'studying' the shillings."

He towered in the doorway, a funereal monument of righteous horror; and once more Harry held out his hand, and let his elder go with the last word. The lad realised, in the first place, that he had just heard one or two things which were perfectly true; and yet, in the second, he was certain that he could not have replied without insolence – after his own prior and virtuous resolve to sell the curios himself. Now he never would sell them – so he felt for the moment; and he found himself closing the door as though there were illness in the flat, in his anxiety to keep from banging it as he desired.

"I fear your Uncle Spencer has been vexing you too," his mother said; "and yet I know that he will do his best to secure you a post."

"Oh, that's all right, mother; he was kind enough; it's only his way," said Harry, for he could see that his mother was sufficiently put out as it was.

"It's a way that makes me miserable," said poor Mrs. Ringrose, with a tear in her voice. "Did you hear what he said to me? He said what I never shall forgive."

"Not about those rotten verses?"

"No – about Mr. Lowndes. Your uncle said he didn't think him an honest man."

CHAPTER VI

THE GAME OF BLUFF

An inscrutable note reached Harry by the last post that night. It was from Gordon Lowndes, and it ran: —

    "Leadenhall Street, E.C.
    "May 20.

"Dear Ringrose, – If you are still of the same mind about a matter which we need not name, let me hear from you by return, and I'll 'inspan' the best detective in the world. He is at present cooling his heels at Scotland Yard, but may be on the job again any day, so why not on ours?

"Perhaps you will kindly drop me a line in any case, as I await your instructions.

"Yours faithfully,

    "GORDON LOWNDES."