"Why, you go about strutting and swelling just like he did when he came about sending you here. I say, do you know what Mums said about him after he went away?"
"No," said Paul, "your mother struck me as a very sensible and agreeable woman—if I may say so to her son."
"Well, Mums said your governor seemed to leave you here just like they leave umbrellas at picture galleries, and she believed he had a large-sized money-bag inside him instead of a heart."
"Oh!" said Paul, with great disgust, for he had thought Mrs. Grimstone a woman of better taste; "your mother said that, did she? Vastly entertaining to be sure—ha, ha! He would be pleased to know she thought that, I'm sure."
"Tell him, and see what he says," suggested Tom; "he is an awful brute to you though, isn't he?"
"If," growled Mr. Bultitude, "slaving from morning till night to provide education and luxury for a thankless brood of unprofitable young vipers is 'being a brute,' I suppose he is."
"Why, you're sticking up for him now!" said Tom. "I thought he was so strict with you. Wouldn't let you have any fun at home, and never took you to pantomimes?"
"And why should he, sir, why should he? Tell me that. Tell me why a man is to be hunted out of his comfortable chair after a well-earned dinner, to go and sit in a hot theatre and a thorough draught, yawning at the miserable drivel managers choose to call a pantomime? Now in my young days there were pantomimes. I tell you, sir, I've seen——"
"Oh, if you're satisfied, I don't care!" said Tom, astonished at this apparent change of front. "If you choose to come back and play the corker like this, it's your look-out. Only, if you knew what Sproule major said about you just now——"
"I don't want to know," said Paul; "it doesn't concern me."