Mr. Philip found an imperious mandate from Grosvenor Square had been laid beside his silver cigar-box when he returned to the Albany at a quarter past two by the morning. It ran:—
“Dear Philip,—Your father desires to see you most particularly upon important business at ten o’clock to-morrow morning.
“Your loving Mother.”
“She means this mornin’, and I shan’t be up if I don’t go to bed soon,” said the heir to the barony, sitting down before the remains of the fire to consider the situation in all its bearings.
The melancholy consequence was that not all the King’s horses and not all the King’s men, including the young man’s body servant, were able to wake him until a few minutes before eleven, in spite of the fact that a special messenger had been round from the Home Department.
If, however, Mahomet declines to move, it is time for the Mountain to be up and doing. Therefore, just as Mr. Philip, enveloped in a sky-blue dressing-gown, was pouring out his coffee with an uncertain hand, something rather portentous was ushered into the presence of the wicked young prodigal.
The white eyebrows of the great Proconsul were a triumph of brushwork; the set of the tie was stern uncommonly; indeed, the whole paternal aspect was enough to strike awe in the heart of the beholder.
The evidence that it did so, however, is not altogether conclusive.
The young waster buttering his toast at a quarter-past eleven in a sky-blue dressing-gown, rose and offered his hand in an easy and leisurely, but withal in a manly and unaffected fashion.
“I was just comin’ round, father,” said the young man.