"Well, Harry," said my uncle, when the servants had left the room, and we drew over the spider table to the fire to discuss our wine with comfort, "what good wind has blown you down to me, my boy? for it's odd enough, five minutes before I heard the wheels on the gravel I was just wishing some good fellow would join me at the grouse—and you see I have had my wish! The old story, I suppose, 'out of cash.' Would not come down here for nothing—eh? Come, lad, tell truth; is it not so?"
"Why, not exactly, sir; but I really had rather at present talk about you, than about my own matters, which we can chat over tomorrow. How do you get on, sir, with the Scotch steward?"
"He's a rogue, sir—a cheat—a scoundrel; but it is the same with them all; and your cousin, Harry—your cousin, that I have reared from his infancy to be my heir, (pleasant topic for me!) he cares no more for me than the rest of them, and would never come near me, if it were not that, like yourself, he was hard run for money, and wanted to wheedle me out of a hundred or two."
"But you forget, sir—I told you I have not come with such an object."
"We'll see that—we'll see that in the morning," replied he, with an incredulous shake of the head.
"But Guy, sir—what has Guy done?"
"What has he not done? No sooner did he join that popinjay set of fellows, the __th hussars, than he turned out, what he calls a four-in-hand drag, which dragged nine hundred pounds out of my pocket—then he has got a yacht at Cowes—a grouse mountain in Scotland—and has actually given Tattersall an unlimited order to purchase the Wreckinton pack of harriers, which he intends to keep for the use of the corps. In a word, there is not an amusement of that villanous regiment, not a flask of champagne drank at their mess, I don't bear my share in the cost of; all through the kind offices of your worthy cousin, Guy Lorrequer."
This was an exceedingly pleasant expose for me, to hear of my cousin indulged in every excess of foolish extravagance by his rich uncle, while I, the son of an elder brother who unfortunately called me by his own name, Harry, remained the sub. in a marching regiment, with not three hundred pounds a year above my pay, and whom any extravagance, if such had been proved against me would have deprived of even that small allowance. My uncle however did not notice the chagrin with which I heard his narrative, but continued to detail various instances of wild and reckless expense the future possessor of his ample property had already launched into.
Anxious to say something without well-knowing what, I hinted that probably my good cousin would reform some of these days, and marry.
"Marry," said my uncle; "yes, that, I believe, is the best thing we can do with him; and I hope now the matter is in good train—so the latest accounts say, at least."