“I? Oh, no, father. I must be a soldier, same as you’ve been, and Gwyn is going to be.”
“But I meant a military surgeon,” said the Major.
“Wouldn’t do, father. Why, if I were to tell Ydoll—I mean Gwyn—that I was going to be a doctor, he would crow over me horribly, and I should never hear the end of it. He’d christen me jalap or rhubarb, or something of that sort.”
“Ah, well, we shall see, and—who’s that coming up to the door?”
Joe looked out from the window, and came back directly.
“The Colonel, dad. Shall I go and let him in?”
“Yes, fetch him in, and stop here and give me a hint now and then if I get a little irritable. What you have told me makes me feel rather cross, and I shall have to give him a bit of my mind. I can’t let him go and waste his money like that.”
Joe hurried out to the front hall, and found that Gwyn had accompanied his father, the former having been hidden by the shrubs as they came up to the door.