“You are unjust to each of us,” said Bramleigh, quietly.
“Well, let us have done with it. I 'll go and ask Miss Ellen for a cup of tea, and then I 'll take my leave. I 'm sure I wish I 'd never have come here. It's enough to provoke a better temper than mine. And now let me just ask you, out of mere curiosity—for, of course, I must n't presume to feel more—but just out of curiosity let me ask you, do you know an art or an industry, a trade or a calling, that would bring you in fifty pounds a year? Do you see your way to earning the rent of a lodging even as modest as this?”
“That is exactly one of the points on which your advice would be very valuable to me, Mr. Cutbill.”
“Nothing of the kind. I could no more tell a man of your stamp how to gain his livelihood than I could make a tunnel with a corkscrew. I know your theory well enough. I 've heard it announced a thousand times and more. Every fellow with a silk lining to his coat and a taste for fancy jewelry imagines he has only to go to Australia to make a fortune; that when he has done with Bond Street he can take to the bush. Isn't that it, Bramleigh—eh? You fancy you 're up to roughing it and hard work because you have walked four hours through the stubble after the partridges, or sat a 'sharp thing' across country in a red coat! Heaven help you! It isn't with five courses and finger-glasses a man finishes his day at Warra-Warra.”
“I assure you, Mr. Cutbill, as regards my own case, I neither take a high estimate of my own capacity nor a low one of the difficulty of earning a living.”
“Humility never paid a butcher's bill, any more than conceit!” retorted the inexorable Cutbill, who seemed bent on opposing everything. “Have you thought of nothing you could do? for, if you 're utterly incapable, there's nothing for you but the public service.”
“Perhaps that is the career would best suit me,” said Bramleigh, smiling; “and I have already written to bespeak the kind influence of an old friend of my father's on my behalf.”
“Who is he?”
“Sir Francis Deighton.”
“The greatest humbug in the Government! He trades on being the most popular man of his day, because he never refused anything to anybody—so far as a promise went; but it's well known that he never gave anything out of his own connections. Don't depend on Sir Francis, Bramleigh, whatever you do.”