“It is a true bill, oh wise, cool-headed, and most virtuous Saint Mark! This, I most solemnly swear to you, is my last and worst scrape. Get me a cheque for a certain sum, wire to the uncle to lodge it at the agents, and I’ll be a truly reformed character, and never touch another card, for ever and ever, amen.”
“And afterwards?”
“Afterwards we will reward the old man, and rejoice his heart, by packing up and going home by the next steamer. He would give many thousand pounds to get you back again—you are the apple of his little pig’s eye. This country does not agree with me—I don’t mean physically, but morally. It’s an enervating, corrupting, beguiling land. We will sell off your guns and ponies, dear boy. I’ve put them up at the club—I hope I have not broken the wind of that dark bay—we will go down in the mail tonga this day week, en route for Bombay. There are temptations for you in this Indian Empire too. The sooner you say good-bye to H. G. the better. Now, there is my programme for you—my new leaf. What have you to say to it?”
Brisk and confident as his speech had been, there was a certain unmistakable lameness in its conclusion. Waring had secretly winced under his listener’s eyes—his listener, who sat motionless, contemplating him with an expression of cool contempt.
“The first thing I have to say is, that my guns and the ponies are not for sale, or only the chestnut with the white legs.”
“Great Scot! You don’t mean to tell me that you intend to take three ponies home! And what do you want with an express rifle and an elephant gun in England?”
“I may require them out here. I am not going back to England.”
Captain Waring sat suddenly erect.
“Of course this is all humbug and rot!” he exclaimed vehemently.
“No. I am quite in earnest. I intend to remain with my father; it is the right thing for me to do. He is alone in the world; his mind is weak.”