“Thanks for your flattering opinion,” said Percy, with a short bow. “I will do my best—or my worst, which is it? Meanwhile, touching that ten pounds!”
“You shall have it with pleasure,” said Spenser Churchill, and he took a note from his purse and handed it to him with a benevolent smile. “Do not spend it——”
“In riotous living! No, father patriarch, I won’t; I will buy myself some decent clothes, and get my hair cut, for I’ve noticed that your Lady Despards take a great deal more interest in struggling genius when it is clean and neatly dressed.”
Spenser Churchill nodded.
“You know the world, I see, my dear Percy. I think that is all we need say. We thoroughly understand each other——”
“I thoroughly understand you,” returned the young fellow; “whether you understand me is quite another matter.”
“I think I do, I think I do,” murmured Spenser Churchill, blandly. “I think that you will do your best to win the game which will secure you a charming wife and future independence. Good-by, my dear Percy. Don’t let the new suit of clothes be too resplendent; remember that you are a poor young man of genius.”
“I’m not likely to forget the poverty,” said Percy, slowly. “Good-by. Mind how you go downstairs; there are generally from twenty to thirty children asleep on them at this hour, and the parents, strange to say, have an unreasonable objection to having them smashed.”
“I will take care,” said the philanthropist, and, with a murmured benediction, he ambled out.