So he carried off the now valueless document, which would not eat or drink, he reckoned, and might be put to some purpose some day.
Mr Burke returned home and wrote to his sister, and to Stephen Philipson, telling them what he had done. He did not write about it to Reginald Kavanagh, not thinking it necessary to take from him any inducement to exert himself, for though he was a good-enough lad in most respects, he certainly was not studious. He was also accused by his schoolfellows of what they called “putting on a good deal of swagger,” a weakness not likely to be improved by the knowledge of his godfather’s kind intentions towards him.
So that altogether Mr Richard Burke was, perhaps, judicious.
Chapter Three.
From Gay To Grave.
Tea was a comfortable meal at Harton in the winter half of the year, when the boys had fires in their rooms, at least, for social fellows who clubbed together. Not but what it is cosy to linger over the meal with a book in your hand, or propped up, as you sit alone at the corner of the table, half turned to the hearth.
But Forsyth, Strachan, and Kavanagh liked to mess together, and Strachan’s room being the largest of the three, they selected that to have their breakfast and tea in. All their cups, saucers, and so on, were kept in a cupboard in that room, but toasting or such other light cookery as their fags performed for them was done in their respective apartments, for the avoidance of overcrowding and dispute amongst the operators. Also, when bloaters, sprats, or sausages were in question, it was well not to feed in the room in which the smell of preparation was most powerful.
Though the half was drawing to its close, the evening board was bountifully spread; for Forsyth’s birthday had come off two days before, and brought with it a token from home—a wicker token which the Lord Mayor himself would not have despised. There was a ham, succulent and tender; a tongue, fresh, not tinned, boiled, not stewed, of most eloquent silence; a packet of sausages, a jar of marmalade, and, most delicious of all, some potted shrimps. Harry knew, but did not tell, that every one of those shrimps had been stripped of its shell by the hands of Trix, who plumed herself, with unquestionable justice, upon her shrimp-potting. Unfathomable is the depth of female devotion; fancy any one being able to skin a shrimp, prawn, or walnut, and not eat it! The shrimps, the sausages, were gone, the tongue was silent for ever, but the ham and the marmalade remained.