'Can I see my mother?' said Tom.
'Not yet, I am sure. She was very much excited last night, and seems to have had difficulty in resting. The last I heard was that she was asleep and not to be disturbed. You may as well take things quietly. Papers found?'
'No, General.'
'Dear! dear! And you say they are important?'
'They are of the deepest, the most incalculable importance to me.'
'You don't mean to say so? I wonder Cherry let them out of his hands.'
'But they were mine—the legacy of the dead man who has enriched me. I hoped to find his wishes, his instructions.'
'In fact,' said the General with a bland smile, 'they had no value except for you. Set your mind at rest, then. They will certainly be found. In the meantime here is your cup. Cream? Sugar? Now then, Yaseen Khan—that fellow is moving like a snail to-day. Don't stare, you son of an owl, but bring up that small table. Understand English? Of course he does. See him when Trixy-sahib speaks to him.' A smile had overspread Yaseen Khan's passive countenance, and he began to hop about briskly. 'There! her very name is enough,' said the General. And thereupon, beginning with Trixy, he talked about his little girls, giving anecdotes illustrative of their peculiar ways of meeting discipline, and of his own wise and subtle methods of bringing them to what he was pleased to call reason.
Grace came out while this tirade was in progress, and she caught the words: 'A firm hand, Tom. That's the secret. Let them know you mean what you say.'
'Are you making Mr. Gregory believe that you are a tyrant, dad?' she said, putting her arms round his neck and kissing him first on the forehead and then on the cheeks. 'Because——'