"Did You sit up to work at night at Port Natal?"
"Only when I had not got a bed to go to," answered candid Roland. "Mine was not that kind of work, sitting up to burn the midnight oil; it lay in knocking about."
"That's quite different."
"What puzzles me more than anything is, that Gerald should have turned author," resumed Roland. "Henry Ollivera was talking about genius at our place the other day. Why, according to what he described it to be, Gerald Yorke must have about as much genius as a walking gander."
Ellen laughed. "Hamish says Gerald has no real genius," she said. "But he has a good deal of talent. He is what may be called a dashing writer."
"Well, I don't know," disputed Roland, who was hard of belief in these alleged qualities of his brother. "I remember in the old days at home, when Gerald was at the college-school, he couldn't be got to write a letter. If Lady Augusta wanted him to write a letter to Carrick, or to George out in India, she would have to din at him for six months. He hated it like poison."
"That may have been idleness."
"Oh, we all went in for that," acknowledged Roland. "I should have been a very lazy beggar to the end of time but for the emigration to Port Natal."