Lord Chickney in the very act of entering his cab had his coat-tail tugged. He looked enquiringly.
“Please, sir, there’s me,” said Bealby.
Lord Chickney reflected. “Well?” he said.
The spirit of Bealby was now greatly abased. His face and voice betrayed him on the verge of tears. “I want to go ’ome to Shonts, sir.”
“Well, my boy, go ’ome—go home, I mean, to Shonts.”
“’E’s gone, sir,” said Bealby....
Lord Chickney was a good-hearted man, and he knew that a certain public kindliness and disregard of appearances looks far better and is infinitely more popular than a punctilious dignity. He took Bealby to Waterloo in his hansom, got him a third class ticket to Chelsome, tipped a porter to see him safely into his train and dismissed him in the most fatherly manner.
§ 13
It was well after tea-time, Bealby felt, as he came once more within the boundaries of the Shonts estate.
It was a wiser and a graver Bealby who returned from this week of miscellaneous adventure. He did not clearly understand all that had happened to him; in particular he was puzzled by the extreme annoyance and sudden departure of Captain Douglas from the presence of Lord Moggeridge; but his general impression was that he had been in great peril of dire punishment and that he had been rather hastily and ignominiously reprieved. The nice old gentleman with the long grey moustaches had dismissed him to the train at last with a quality of benediction. But Bealby understood now better than he had done before that adventures do not always turn out well for the boy hero, and that the social system has a number of dangerous and disagreeable holes at the bottom. He had reached the beginnings of wisdom. He was glad he had got away from the tramp and still gladder that he had got away from Crayminster; he was sorry that he would never see the beautiful lady again, and perplexed and perplexed. And also he was interested in the probability of his mother having toast for tea....