“I intend to do a great deal,” said Roland.
“But suppose you found you could do none—suppose it, I say—what would become of you out in a strange place, without money, and without friends?”
“Well,” returned Roland, who was never at a loss for an answer: “if such an impossible thing as a failure were to turn up, I should come back to my Uncle Carrick, and make him start me in something else.”
“Ah!” mockingly observed Mr. Galloway, “a rolling stone gathers no moss. Meanwhile, Mr. Roland Yorke, suppose you come down from the clouds to your proper business. Draw out this deed again, and see if you can accomplish it to a little better purpose than you did yesterday.”
Roland, liking the tone less and less, sat down and grew sullen. “Don’t say I did not give you notice, sir,” he observed.
But Mr. Galloway vouchsafed no reply. Indeed, it may be questioned if he heard the remark, for he went into his own room at the moment Roland spoke, and shut the door after him.
“Mocking old caterpillar!” grumbled angry Roland. “No fortunes at Port Natal! I’d go off, if it was only to tantalize him!”