It was in this pernickety way (the word is beautifully expressive) that I always guarded Little Yeogh Wough.
People accused me of only loving him so desperately because he was good-looking. I dare say his looks went some little way with me. I have never pretended that I should devote myself to a person with a hare lip as well as to a person without one; and certainly the boy of my heart, besides being glorious to look at, had a knack of making people surround him with attractive things that added to his own attractiveness. Whenever he went into a shop to have some plain and practical article bought for him, he managed to choose for himself an idealised example of the same thing, at quite double the suggested price, and have it sent in. Prices meant nothing to him, and at the age of seven he was not half so good a financier as his sister of four.
"That there boy 'ull never 'ave a penny in 'is pocket in all 'is life, not even if he gets thousands a year," Old Nurse was accustomed to say to my secretary, who was a willing listener. "Money burns 'oles with 'im, wherever he carries it."
"Oh yes, Nurse. But he always spends it on his mother. Look at the flowers he buys her—violets and carnations, all through the winter, and even roses! That's really wonderful, you know, Nurse, in the present day, when children are so selfish."
"M'yes," rejoined Old Nurse doubtfully. "But what do 'e do it for? It's just jealousy; that's what it is, just jealousy, so as nobody else shan't give 'is mother anything. Why, there was Miss Clare yesterday, she spent 'er week's pocket money buyin' some roses for 'er mother, and 'e 'appened to meet us comin' home with 'em when he was walkin' up the road with a schoolboy, and what did he do, d'you think? Why, he ran as 'ard as he could and bought some carnations and got 'ome with them first and gave them to 'is mother; and when the poor little girl got in with 'er roses, she was thanked for 'em, of course, but they wasn't worn or put on the study table. They was just put away in the back drawing-room, where nobody never goes."
"Ah, that's it, you see!" said Miss Torry. "But, of course, Nurse, the little girl ought to have told exactly what had happened."
"That's what I said to 'er, but she wouldn't do it. She's shy. And that there Master Roland, 'e do override everything and everybody. He's that spoiled that there's no——"
"Oh, come now, Nurse, you're as bad as everybody else with him! You always say he's charming."
"Well, so 'e is. I will say this for 'im—that he never gives me a back answer. That there Miss Clare, she could 'old 'er own so far as tongue goes with an East-End street child. Master Roland, 'e corrects her for it. 'E says: 'Now, Clare, you mustn't speak like that to Nurse.' Then he told 'er as somebody called George Meredith, that their mother thinks a lot of, said he wanted 'em all to be polite above all things."
"That's it, you see," said Miss Torry again. She was a delightful creature, but she always felt rather uncomfortable under Old Nurse's severe eye.