I found out that Mr Solomon had another nature beside the one that seemed cold.
Chapter Twenty Four.
Sir Francis and a Friend.
The next few days passed pleasantly enough, for I saw very little of the two young gentlemen, who spent a good deal of their time in a meadow beyond the garden, playing cricket and quarrelling. Once there seemed to have been a fight, for I came upon Philip kneeling down by a watering-pot busy with his handkerchief bathing his face, and the state of the water told tales of what had happened to his nose.
As he seemed in trouble I was about to offer him my services, but he turned upon me so viciously with, “Hullo! pauper, what do you want?” that I went away.
The weather was lovely, and while it was so hot Mr Solomon used to do the principal part of his work in the glass houses at early morn and in the evening.
“Makes us work later, Grant,” he used to say apologetically; “but as it’s for our own convenience we ought not to grumble.”
“I’m not going to grumble, sir,” I said laughing; “all that training and tying in is so interesting, I like it.”