“In town—in his office, I suppose.”
“Why aren’t you there?”
“Oh, I’ve about cut the office. Stanton doesn’t make me very welcome when I do go.”
“You’re of no use to him, probably.”
“Well, I don’t adore bookkeeping,” frankly; “and Stanton lets me take no responsibility in buying or selling.”
“Suppose he should die, also your father, do you think you could carry on the business?”
“Couldn’t I!” said Valentine, with all of a young man’s sublime confidence in his own capabilities.
“I’d like to see you do it,” grimly. “Things would go ‘ker-smash,’ as old Hannah says. What are you improving you mind with on this glorious day? A literary family, forsooth.”
Valentine Armour, who with all his faults was as sunny-tempered as a child, refused to tell him, and from mischievous motives solely, tried to roll over on his book. He succeeded in getting it under him, and lay on it laughing convulsively. He was slight and tall of figure, but his strength was as nothing against the prodigious power that lay in Camperdown’s limbs when he chose to exert himself.
Shaking Valentine like a rat, he lifted him with one hand by the waistband, and dropped him on the hearth rug, where the young man sat nursing his crossed legs, and convulsed with laughter at the various expressions of disgust chasing themselves over the physician’s plain-featured countenance.