“Oh, as to that,” replied my uncle, “he can never find our larder at a nonplus; we have no dishes for him dressed Chinese fashion; but as to roast beef of old England, which, I take it, is worth all the foreign meats in the world, he is welcome to it, and to as much of it as he pleases. I shall always be glad to see him as a relation and so forth, as a good Christian ought, but not as the favourite he used to be—that is out of the question; for things cannot be both done and undone, and time that’s past cannot come back again, that is clear; and cold water thrown on a warm heart puts it out; and there’s an end of the matter. Lucy, bring me my nightcap.”
Lucy, I think, sighed once; and I am sure I sighed above a dozen times; but my uncle put on his red nightcap, and heeded us not. I was in hopes that the next morning he would have been better disposed towards me after having slept off his anger. The moment that I appeared in the morning, the children, who had been in bed when I arrived the preceding night, crowded round me, and one cried, “Cousin Basil, have you brought me the tumbler you promised me from China?”
“Cousin Basil, where’s my boat?”
“O Basil, did you bring me the calibash box that you promised me?”
“And pray,” cried my aunt, “did you bring my Lucy the fan that she commissioned you to get?”
“No, I’ll warrant,” said my uncle. “He that cannot bring himself to write a letter in the course of seven years to his friends, will not be apt to trouble his head about their foolish commissions, when he is in foreign parts.”
Though I was abashed and vexed, I summoned sufficient courage to reply that I had not neglected to execute the commissions of any of my friends; but that, by an unlucky accident, the basket into which I had packed all their things was washed overboard.
“Hum!” said my uncle.
“And pray,” said my aunt, “why were they all packed in a basket? Why were not they put into your trunks, where they might have been safe?”
I was obliged to confess that I had delayed to purchase them till after we left Pekin; and that the trunks were put on board before they were all procured at Canton. My vile habit of procrastination! How did I suffer for it at this moment! Lucy began to make excuses for me, which made me blame myself the more: she said that, as to her fan, it would have been of little or no use to her; that she was sure she should have broken it before it had been a week in her possession; and that, therefore, she was glad that she had it not. The children were clamorous in their grief for the loss of the boat, the tumbler, and the calibash boxes; but Lucy contrived to quiet them in time, and to make my peace with all the younger part of the family. To reinstate me in my uncle’s good graces was impossible; he would only repeat to her—“The young man has lost my good opinion; he will never do any good. From a child upward he has always put off doing every thing he ought to do. He will never do any good; he will never be any thing.” My aunt was not my friend, because she suspected that Lucy liked me; and she thought her daughter might do much better than marry a man who had quitted the profession to which he was bred, and was, as it seemed, little likely to settle to any other. My pretensions to genius and my literary qualifications were of no advantage to me, either with my uncle or my aunt; the one being only a good farmer, and the other only a good housewife. They contented themselves with asking me, coolly, what I had ever made by being an author? And when I was forced to answer nothing, they smiled upon me in scorn. My pride was roused, and I boasted that I expected to receive at least 600l. for my “Voyage to China,” which I hoped to complete in a few weeks. My aunt looked at me with astonishment; and, to prove to her that I was not passing the bounds of truth, I added, that one of my travelling companions had, as I was credibly informed, received 1000l. for his narrative, to which mine would certainly be far superior.