I hurried back to the house. To my joy, father was in. He was very neatly dressed. I had not seen him so smart for a long time. “Why, father!” I said.
“I am leaving home to-night,” was his remark. “I shall be away for a little. I shall be back presently. You will get a letter from me.”
“But, father, the lecture at the Royal Society?” I said.
“That is not until next Wednesday, this day week. I shall be back again by then. I shall return probably on Sunday, or Monday morning. My dear child, don’t gape. Another man is taking my place at the school. Here, Dumps, here; you’d like five shillings, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh yes, father.”
It did not really greatly matter to me whether my dear father was in the house or not. I was bewildered at his going; it was quite amazing that he should get any one else to take his boys in the middle of term, but it did not seriously affect my interests or my peace. “You have a very smart coat on,” I said.
“Have I?” he replied, shrugging his shoulders. “Well, if it pleases you it will please other women. Can’t understand why people look so much at the exterior. Exterior matters nothing. It is how the brain is worked, how the mind tells on the body, how the soul is moved. Those are the things that matter.”
“Father, have you had any food?”
“Yes; Hannah gave me a chop.”
There was a bone from a mutton-chop on a plate near by, but there seemed to be no appearance of a meal for me, and I was very hungry.