"Well, then, get to bed at once. I've got to say a few words to Tooby; and I'll see Marks when he comes up with the statement, and take care that all's straight. You've seen your own proofs? Very well, then; God bless you! and be off, and don't let us see your face for a month."
They shook hands warmly; and as Churchill left the room, Harding called after him, "Two things, Frank: look out for a nice wife, and don't get your head turned with what are called 'swells.'"
Throughout London town there breathed no simpler-minded man than George Harding. At College, as in after-life, he had lived with a very small set, entirely composed of men of his own degree in the world; and of any other he had the vaguest possible notion. His intellectual acquirements were great, and his reading was vast and catholic; but of men and cities he had seen literally nothing; and as, except in his annual vacation, when he could go down with his family and potter about the quietest of watering-places, he never went any where save from his home to the Statesman office, and from the Statesman office to his home, he was not likely to enlarge his knowledge of life. Occasionally, on a Saturday night in the season, he would get the Opera-box from the musical critic, and would take Mrs. Harding to Her Majesty's; but there his whole attention would be absorbed in contemplating the appearance and manners of the "swells,"--the one word not to be found in the dictionary which he sometimes indulged in. Slightly Radical in his opinions was George Harding; and that he was not much gratified by his observation of these specimens of the upper ten thousand, was to be traced in certain little pungencies and acerbities in his leading articles after these Opera visits. He worshipped his calling, in his own honest, simple, steadfast way, and resented, quietly but sturdily, any attempts at what he considered patronage by those of higher social rank. The leaders of his political party, recognisant of the good service done to them by Harding's pen, had, on several occasions, essayed to prove their gratitude by little set civilities: huge cards of invitation to Lady Helmsman's Saturday-evening reunions had found their way to the Statesman's deep-mouthed letter-box; carriage-paid hampers of high-flavoured black game sped thither from the Highland shooting-box, where the Foreign Secretary was spending his hard-earned holiday; earliest intimation of political changes, in "confidential" covers, were conveyed there by Downing-Street messengers. But George Harding never appeared at Protocol House; his name was never seen low down amongst those of the Foreign-Office clerks and outer selvage of fashion, chronicled with such urbanity by Mr. Henchman of the High-Life Gazette; and no attention or flattery ever made him pander to a shuffle, or register a lie. He had a very high opinion of Churchill's talents and honour; but he knew him to be fond of praise, and, above all, greatly wanting in discretion. Harding had seen so many men full of promise fall into the dreary vortex of drink and debt and pot-house dissipation, that he had hailed with delight the innate decency and gentlemanly feeling which had kept Frank Churchill out of such dirty orgies; but now he feared lest the disinfectant might prove even worse than the disease itself; and lest the aristocratic notions, which his friend undoubtedly possessed, might lead him into society where his manliness and proper pride might be swallowed up in the effulgency of his surroundings.
So mused George Harding, bending over the dingy old grate at the Statesman office, and gazing vacantly at the shavings with which it was filled, while waiting for Mr. Marks, the head printer, to bring him the "statement," showing the amount required to fill the paper. Meanwhile Churchill, cigar in mouth, was striding through the deserted streets, rejoicing in the thought of his coming holiday, and inwardly chuckling over his friend's warnings. At last he stopped at a door in a dull respectable street leading out of Brunswick Square, let himself in with a latch-key, drank a tumbler of soda-water, and glanced at the addresses of some letters in his little dining-room, exchanged his boots for slippers at the bottom of the staircase, and crept slowly up the stairs. As he arrived at the second floor, he paused for a minute, and a voice said, "God bless you, Frank!"
"God bless you, mother!" he replied; "good night, dear;" and passed into his room.
Then he sat himself on the side of his bed, and began leisurely to undress himself, smiling meanwhile.
"Bring back a wife, and beware of swells, eh? That is the essence of Harding's advice. No, no my darling old mother; you and I get on too well together to change our lives. An amusing time a wife would have with me,--out half the night at the office, and she shivering in the dining-room waiting my return. Wife, by Jove! Yes; and thick fat chops, and sixteen-shilling trousers, and the knifeboard of the omnibus instead of the cob to ride on! No; I think not. And as for swells--that old republican, Harding, thinks every man with a handle to his name is an enemy to Magna Charta. I should like to show him my old godfather walking into an idiotic peer of the realm!"
And, very much tickled at the idea, Churchill put out his candle and turned in.