"Ah, to be sure!" Mr. Scougall's freshly upholstered chairs had all been wrapped in holland coverings pending his return. "Mr. Trapp, Harry, is a—a chimney-sweep."
"Oh!" said I, somewhat ruefully.
"And if I can answer for your character (as I believe I can)," she went on with a wan, almost wistful smile, "he is ready to make you his apprentice."
"But I had rather be a soldier, Miss Plinlimmon!"
She still kept her smile, but I could read in it that my pleading was useless; that the decision really lay beyond her.
"Boys will be boys, Mr. Trapp." She turned to him with her air of gentility. "You will forgive Harry for preferring a red coat to—to your calling." (I thought this treacherous of Miss Plinlimmon. As if she did not prefer it herself!) "No doubt he will learn in time that all duty is alike noble, whether it bids a man mount the deadly breach or climb a—or do the sort of climbing required in your profession."
"I climbed up that spire in my sleep," said I, sullenly.
"That's just it," Mr. Trapp agreed. "That's what put me on the track of ye. 'Here's a tacker,' I said, 'can climb up to the top of Emmanuel's in his sleep, and I've been wasting money and temper on them that won't go up an ord'nary chimbley when they're wideawake, 'ithout I lights a furze-bush underneath to hurry them.'"
"I trust," put in Miss Plinlimmon, aghast, "you are jesting, Mr. Trapp?"
"Jesting, ma'am?"