“Smart lad that Elshaw,” said Mr. Cornthwaite approvingly. “And steady. Never drinks, as so many of them do.”
“Can you wonder at their drinking?” broke out Christian with energy, “when they have to spend their lives at this infernal work? It parches my throat only to watch them, and I’m sure if I had to pass as many hours as they do in this awful, grimy hole I should never be sober.”
The elder Mr. Cornthwaite looked undecided whether to frown or to laugh at this tirade, which had at least the merit of being uttered in all sincerity by the very person who could least afford to utter it. He compromised by giving breath to a little sigh.
“It’s very disheartening to me to hear you say so, Chris, when it has been the aim of my life to bring you up to carry on and build up the business I have given my life to,” he said.
Christian Cornthwaite’s face was not an expressive one. He was extraordinarily unlike his father in almost every way, having prominent blue eyes, instead of his father’s piercing black ones, a fair complexion, while his father’s was dark, a figure shorter, broader, and less upright, and an easy, happy-go-lucky walk and manner, as different as possible from the erect, military bearing of the head of the firm.
What little expression he could throw into his big blue eyes he threw into them now, as he pulled his long, ragged, tawny moustache and echoed his father’s sigh.
“Well, isn’t it disheartening for me too, sir,” protested he good-humoredly, “to hear you constantly threatening to put me on bread and water for the rest of my life if I don’t settle down in this beastly hole and try to love it?”
“It ought to be natural to you to love what has brought you up in every comfort, educated you like a prince, and made of you——”
Josiah Cornthwaite paused, and a twinkle came into his black eyes.