“Your notions of disgrace aren’t mine. Your notions of disgrace are the sort of damned sentiment that will wreck this country and all that’s in it.”
“I don’t see why, sir. I don’t want to argue with you, sir; but it is important to me: what I am to do all my life.”
“It is equally important to me that my son should not make a mistaken choice.”
“But what a man most wants to do, sir, can’t be a mistaken choice.”
“You’re not a man; but a damned young ass. That being so, and it is so, it’s for me to decide. I’ve got to supply the money whatever you do; I suppose you won’t deny that.”
“I was wondering, sir, whether you would advance to me Aunt Melloney’s money, that I’m to have when I’m of age, and let me pay for myself.”
“Pay what for yourself?”
“The fees or premiums, sir, for going through the shops.”
“So that’s what the fellow meant, was it? Now I know. ‘The shops,’ he said. There was a drunken engineer at Newmarket, who said, ‘Let the gentleman keep clear of the shops.’ He was drunk when he said it; but that’s what he meant; now I know; and he showed a fine sense of the situation.”
“Would you advance me the money, sir?”