“Why, you don’t want the old man to take another wife, do you?” said Tom. “I say, dad! Here, I say: wake up.”
“Silence, sir, how dare you!” exclaimed his mother. “You wicked, offensive boy. I was, for your benefit, trying to point out to you how you might gain for yourself a first-rate establishment, when you interrupted me with your ribald jests.”
“Hang the establishment!” said Tom; “any one would think you were always getting your children into trade. I shall marry little Tryphie, if she’ll have me. I’m not going to marry for money. Pretty sort of a fellow I look for making a brilliant match, don’t I?”
“Oh, Tom, Tom, Tom,” said her ladyship, bursting into tears, “you will break your poor mother’s heart.”
“Not I,” said Tom, cynically; “it’s not one of the heart-breaking sort. But I say, you’ve made Diana miserable, and Maude half crazy, and now I hope you are happy. Tell you what, I shouldn’t be at all surprised now if it’s through you that Charley Melton is going to the bad. If so, you’ve done it and no mistake.”
“I am surprised that your father allows you to talk to me like this,” said her ladyship. “I never knew a son so wanting in respect.”
“Dad’s asleep; don’t wake him,” said Tom; “the old man’s about tired out.”
A snore from the easy-chair endorsed Tom’s words, and he sat smiling at his mother, knowing from old experience that she would not go away till he had done criticising her conduct in his rough and ready style.
“I shudder when I think of poor Maude’s escape,” said her ladyship. “Nothing could be more disgraceful than that young man’s conduct. He sees at last though that he cannot marry Maude, and that it would be little short of a crime, so he—”
“Stands out of it,” said Tom. “Hang me if I would, if any one was to try to cut in after Tryphie.”