"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."
"Ah, Dick, Dick," said Inspector Robson, very seriously, "we don't live in the future, we live in the present. When we're hungry a future dinner won't satisfy our stomachs. Aunt Rob sums it up in three or four words. 'Dick's got no stability,' she says, and, against my will, I've come round to her way of thinking. I suppose, Dick, all this time you haven't saved a penny--eh?" The young man made no reply, and Inspector Robson cried, half angrily, half admiringly, "What business had you to be making us presents and bringing things home for Aunt Rob and me and Florence when you ought to have been looking after yourself? What did you do it for?' Here's Dick brought home an immense turkey,' says Aunt Rob to me at Christmas; and at other times, 'Here's that stupid Dick brought home a couple of chickens, or a veal and ham pie,' and I don't know what all. 'I wish,' says Aunt Rob, 'that you'd tell him to stop it, and put his money into the savings bank.' But not you! At the least mention of such a thing you fired up and wanted to know what we meant by it."
"I could not have acted differently," said Dick. "I was living upon you--yes, I was. You wouldn't take anything for my board and lodging, and I had to try and make it up in some way. It was little enough I did, but if I hadn't done that little I should have been ashamed to look you in the face. Besides, how many times have you said to me, 'Dick, you must be in want of a bit of pocket money,' and forced a half sovereign upon me, and sometimes more?"
"Welcome you were to it," said Inspector Robson, in his heartiest tone, "though it's my firm belief if you had a thousand a year you'd never have a shilling in your purse, you're that free with your money. A sailor come ashore after a two year's cruise is a fool to you." He paused a moment. "Dick, my lad, I've been too hard on you, in what I've said: I'm downright ashamed of myself."
"It isn't in you, and it isn't in Aunt Rob, to do anything of which you need be ashamed. I have been thoughtless and inconsiderate----"
"No, no, Dick!"