“I wish from my heart and soul I had never come here. I would to Heaven I had gone away at once, as I first intended. I like that boy; I feel he has fine stuff in him; and now—”
“Come, come, Harcourt, it's the fault of all soft-hearted fellows, like yourself, that their kindliness degenerates into selfishness, and they have such a regard for their own feelings that they never agree to anything that wounds them. Just remember that you and I have very small parts in this drama, and the best way we can do is to fill them without giving ourselves the airs of chief characters.”
“You're at your old game, Upton; you are always ready to wet yourself, provided you give another fellow a ducking.”
“Only if he get a worse one, or take longer to dry after it,” remarked Upton, laughing.
“Quite true, by Jove!” chimed in the other; “you take special care to come off best. And now you 're going,” added he, as Upton rose to withdraw, “and I'm certain that I have not half comprehended what you want from me.”
“You shall have it in writing, Harcourt; I'll send you a clear despatch the first spare moment I can command after I reach town. The boy will not be fit to move for some time to come, and so good-bye.”
“You don't know where they are going to send you?”
“I cannot frame even a conjecture,” sighed Upton, languidly. “I ought to be in the Brazils for a week or so about that slave question; and then the sooner I reach Constantinople the better.”
“Sha' n't they want you at Paris?” asked Harcourt, who felt a kind of quiet vengeance in developing what he deemed the weak vanity of the other.
“Yes,” sighed he again; “but I can't be everywhere.” And so saying, he lounged away, while it would have taken a far more subtle listener than Harcourt to say whether he was mystifying the other, or the dupe of his own self-esteem.