The year wore on, ran out, with the glories of pantomime and various holiday joys with Mr. Aston. Christopher by this time had accepted his surroundings as permanent, with regard to Mr. Aston and Aymer, though he still, in his heart of hearts, had no belief that so far as he was concerned they might not any day vanish away and leave him again prey to a world of privations, wants and disagreeables generally.
He was forever trying to make provision against that possible day, and laid up a secret hoard of treasure he deemed might be useful on emergency. With the same idea he made really valiant attempts to put aside a portion of his ample pocket-money for the same purpose, but it generally dwindled to an inconsiderable sum by Saturday. Aymer kept him well supplied and encouraged him to spend freely. He was told again and again the money was given him to spend and not to keep, and that the day of need would not come to him. He would listen half convinced, until the vision of some street arabs racing for pennies would remind him of positive facts that had been and therefore might be again, and cold prudence had her say. But this trait was the result of experience and not of nature, for he was generous enough. Not infrequently the whole treasury went to the relief of already existing needs outside the garden railings, and he could be wildly extravagant. Aymer never questioned him. He sometimes laughed at him when he had wasted a 33 whole week’s money on some childish folly, and told him he was a silly baby, which Christopher did not like. However, he found he had to buy his own experiences, and he soon learnt that no folly however childish annoyed “Cæsar” so much as accumulated wealth for no particular object but a possible future need.
Christopher had christened Aymer “Cæsar” shortly after his introduction to the literary remains of one, Julius, from some fanciful resemblance, and the name stuck and solved a difficulty.
In the same manner he bestowed the distinctive title of St. Michael on Mr. Aston, from his likeness to a famous picture of that great saint in a stained glass window he had seen, and it also was generally adopted.
No one made any further attempt to explain his introduction into the family, or the general history of that family. He was just “grafted in,” and left to discover what he could for himself, and he certainly gathered some fragmentary disconnected facts together.
“What is a Secletary?” demanded Christopher one day from the hearth-rug, where he lay turning over old volumes of the Illustrated London News.
“A Secretary, I suppose you mean. A Secretary is a man who writes letters for someone else.”
“Who does St. Michael write letters for?”
“He used to write letters for the Queen, or rather on the Queen’s business. What book have you got there?”
Christopher explained.