“Your most humble servant, sir,” he continued sarcastically. “I only wanted to add, that I should like you to do it as soon as you can, for he is costing me a great deal for clothes and boots.”
“There, there, Chowne,” said my father, taking pity upon me, “boys will be boys. I daresay your chap was just as bad as mine, and old Uggleston’s baby quite their equal.”
“They lead my Bob into all the mischief,” cried the Doctor sharply.
“Oh, no doubt, no doubt,” said my father in his driest way.
“And I should like to know as near as I can when it’s to come to an end?”
“There, there, never mind,” said my father good-humouredly. “Give them another chance, and if they spoil these clothes we’ll send into Bristol for some sail-cloth, and have ’em rigged out in that.”
“Sail-cloth!” cried the doctor, “old carpet you mean. That’s the only thing for them.”
“Holidays will soon be over, Chowne, and we shall be rid of them.”
“Yes, that’s a comfort,” said the doctor; and, as he turned away, I looked appealingly at my father, who gave me a dry look, and taking it to mean that I might go, I slipped off and went in to Ripplemouth.
I soon found Bob, sitting in a very ragged old suit, out of which he had grown two years before, and he looked so comical with his arms far through his sleeves, and his legs showing so long beneath his trouser bottoms, than I burst out laughing.