“But I’ll tell you what, Larkins, I can’t think how a fellow like you can go and give in to these sneaking, underhand tricks that make you ashamed to look one in the face.”
“It is only for the fun of it.”
“Well, I wish you would find your fun some other way. Come, Larkins, recollect yourself a little—you have a home not so far off. How do you think your father and mother would fancy seeing you reading the book you had yesterday, or coming out of Ballhatchet’s with a bottle of spirits, called by a false name?”
Larkins pinched his fingers; home was a string that could touch him, but it seemed beneath him to own it. At that moment a carriage approached, the boy’s whole face lighted up, and he jumped forward. “Our own!” he cried. “There she is!”
She was, of course, his mother; and Norman, though turning hastily away that his presence might prove no restraint, saw the boy fly over the door of the open carriage, and could have sobbed at the thought of what that meeting was.
“Who was that with you?” asked Mrs. Larkins, when she had obtained leave to have her boy with her, while she did her shopping.
“That was May senior, our dux.”
“Was it? I am very glad you should be with him, my dear George. He is very kind to you, I hope?”
“He is a jolly good fellow,” said Larkins sincerely, though by no means troubling himself as to the appropriateness of the eulogy, nor thinking it necessary to explain to his mother the terms of the conversation.
It was not fruitless; Larkins did avoid mischief when it was not extremely inviting, was more amenable to May senior, and having been put in mind by him of his home, was not ashamed to bring the thought to the aid of his eyes, when, on Sunday, during a long sermon of Mr. Ramsden’s, he knew that Axworthy was making the grimace which irresistibly incited him to make a still finer one.