“Not in either judgment or observation; only in instinct.”
“And that’s for yourself,” she added, slipping a sovereign into my pocket. “I don’t know how much Mr. Todhetley has given you. Mind you spend your money in right things, Johnny. But I am not afraid; I could trust you all over the world.”
Giles put in my portmanteau, and we drove off. The hedges were beginning to bud; the fields looked green. From observations about the young lambs, and a broken fence that he went into a passion over, the Squire suddenly plunged into something else.
“You take care of yourself, sir, in London! Boys get into all kinds of pitfalls there, if they don’t mind.”
“But I do not call myself a boy, sir, now.”
“Not call yourself a boy!” retorted the Squire, staring. “I’d like to know what else you are. Tod’s a boy, sir, and nothing else, though he does count twenty years. I wonder what the world’s coming to!” he added, lashing up Bob and Blister. “In my days, youngsters did not think themselves men before they had done growing.”
“What I meant was that I am old enough to take care of myself. Mrs. Todhetley has just said she could trust me all over the world.”
“Just like her foolishness! Take care you don’t get your pockets picked: there’s sure to be a thief at every corner. And don’t you pick them yourself, Master Johnny. I knew a young fellow once who went up to London with ten pounds in his pocket. He was staying at the Castle and Falcon Hotel, near the place where the mails used to start from—and a fine sight it was to see them bowl out, one after another, with their lamps lighted. Well, Johnny, this young fellow got back again in four days by one of these very mails, every shilling spent, and his fare down not paid. You’d not think that was steady old Jacobson; but it was.”
I laughed. The Squire looked more inclined to cry.
“Cleaned out, he was; not a rap left! Money melts in London—that’s a fact—and it is very necessary to be cautious. His went in seeing the shows; so he told his father. Don’t you go in for too many of them, Johnny, or you may find yourself without funds to bring you home, and railways don’t give trust. You might go to the Tower, now; and St. Paul’s; and the British Museum; they are steady places. I wouldn’t advise a theatre, unless it’s just once—some good, respectable play; and mind you go straight home after it. Some young men slink off to singing-shops now, they say, but I am sure such places can bring no good.”