I own to you, Bob, I quaked somewhat as I saw him smash the seal. My mind misgave me in fifty ways. "Vickars," thought I, "has given me some infernal store-keepership in the Gambia, or made me inspector of yellow fever in Chusan." I surmised a dozen different promotions, every one of which was several posts on the road to the next world. Nor were my anticipations much brightened by watching the workings of the governor's face as he perused the epistle; for it grew darker and darker, the angles of the mouth were drawn down, till that expressive feature put on the semblance of a Saxon arch, while his eyes glistened with an expression of fiend-like malice.
"Well, K. I.," said my mother, in whom the Job-like element was not of a high development,—"well, K. I., what does he say? Is it the old story about his list being full, or has he done it at last?"
"Yes, ma'am," said my father, as though echoing her words. "He has done it at last!"
"And what is it to be, papa? Is it something that a gentleman can suitably accept?" cried Mary Anne.
"Done it at last, you may well say!" muttered my father, half aloud.
"Better late than never," cried Lord George, gayly.
"Well, I don't know that, my Lord," said my father, turning upon him with an abruptness little short of offensive; "I am not so sure that I quite coincide with you. If a young fellow enters life totally uneducated and unprovided for, his only certain heritage being the mortgages on his father's property, and perhaps," he added with a sneer,—"and perhaps some of his mother's virtues, I say I am not exactly convinced that he has improved his chances of worldly success by such a production as that!"
And with these words, every one of which he delivered with a terrible distinctness, he handed a letter across the table to Lord George, who slowly perused it in silence.
"As for you, sir," continued my father, turning towards me, "I grieve to inform you that no vacancy at present offers itself in the Guards, nor in the household, where your natural advantages could be remarked and appreciated. It will be, however, a satisfaction to you to know that your high claims are already understood, and well thought of, in the proper quarter. There's Mr. Vickars's letter." And he presented me with the note, which ran thus:—
"Dear Mr. Dodd,—By the enclosed letter, bearing your son's signature, I have discovered how totally below his just expectations would be any of those official appointments which are within the limits of my humble patronage to bestow.