“Don't talk as if I were a sort of little tin hero, mater, or else I'll have to leave the room, for I'm nothing of the sort, really. If you only saw me at my desk, or fussing round the offices, or passing the time of day on corn, you would see that I was simply born for business.”
“Jack,” said Mrs. Laycock solemnly, “you have not been without faults, I'm thankful to say, for you've been hot-tempered, hot-headed, wilful, and lots of things, but this is the first time you have been deliberately untruthful.”
“Mother, with all respect to you, I will not stand this insult,” and so he slipped down on the floor and caressed his mother's hand. “You think that I've no commercial ability. Wait for the event It will be swagger, you bet.”
“I think everything that is good of you, Jack, as I ought, and your father did; but I know that it was very hard that you could not go back to Rugby this autumn and finish in the sixth, and go to Cambridge and study at Caius, your father's college, and get your M.D., and take up your father's profession and the one you loved, the noblest a man can live and... die in,” and there was a break in the widow's voice.
“Of course, mater, that is what I would have preferred, and it was a bit... stiff when I knew that it would all have to be given up; but that was nothing to... losing father. And besides, I think that I may get on in business and... help you, mother.”
“Your father had set his heart on your being a doctor, and I don't know whether he ever spoke to you about it, but he hoped you might become a specialist—in surgery, I think; he said you had the hands at least for a good surgeon.
“It was his own heart's desire, you know, to be a surgeon, pure and simple, and Mr. Holman, the great consultant, considered him to be one of the best operators in the provinces, but he was obliged to be a general practitioner.
“Why? Oh, because he had no private means, and he had you and me to support, so he couldn't run any risks; he had to secure a regular income; and there is something I wish you to understand, in case you should ever think hardly of your father.”
“Mother—as if I could! The very people in the street admired father; you know what they said in the Morning Trumpet about his self-sacrificing life, and his skill being at the disposal of the poorest, without money and without price.”
“Yes, the papers were very kind, and his patients adored your father; but I am certain some of our neighbours criticised him because he did not make better provision for his wife and child. As if he had been extravagant or improvident, who never spent a farthing on himself, and was always planning for our welfare.”