“Now, look here, Harry,” continued Lionel; “as to robbery, don’t you be a fool. You’re saving the governor no end by keeping down my expenses; for you know, Harry, I am rather afraid of you, I am indeed; but I want you to stop with me all the same. Don’t speak; it’s my turn to preach now. As to reading, and all that sort of thing, studying, and working up—I can’t read, and I won’t read. I’m not clever, and classics are no use to me, and never will be, with my income. What the deuce do I care about Homer and Virgil, and all the rest of the Greek and Roman humbugs? It’s right enough for a clever fellow like you—all brains. But, ’pon my soul, Harry, if you bother me any more, I’ll swear, and then I’ll bite, so there’s an end of it.”
Harry shrugged his shoulders, and then in despair closed the book at his side, gazing the while, with a serio-comic look of chagrin, in the handsome Saxon face of the speaker.
“’Taint your fault, Harry; so just hold your tongue and have a cigar, and pitch me over another, for I’m dog tired.”
Saying which, he contrived to catch the roll of tobacco leaf, lit a fusee on the sole of his boot, and then threw himself back, but only—as there came a smart rap at the door—to yell out impatiently—
“Come in!”
The door was opened, and a smart-looking maid brought in a letter, which was evidently for the master of the chambers; but as his hands were locked together behind his reclining head, and the exertion of loosening them seemed to be more than he cared to encounter, Harry took the missive from the girl, and glanced at the superscription.
“For you,” he said, as the girl retired.
“’Taint from the governor, I can see at this distance,” said Lionel. “Open it and see what’s inside, there’s a good fellow. Tailor’s bill I’ll be bound.”
“No,” said Harry, turning the note over uneasily; “it is evidently a lady’s hand.”
“Lady’s hand! Gammon! Who’d write to me?”