“Great fortunes made!” irascibly responded Mr. Galloway. “Pittances, that folks go out with, are lost, when they are such as he. That’s what it is. Harem-scarem chaps, who won’t work, can do no good at Port Natal. Great fortunes made, indeed! I wonder that you can be led away by notions so wild and extravagant, Lady Augusta!”
“I am not led away by them,” peevishly returned Lady Augusta, a recollection of her own elation on the point darting unpleasantly to her mind. “Where would have been the use of my holding out against it, when he had set his heart upon the thing? He would have gone in spite of me. Do you not think fortunes are made there, Mr. Galloway?”
“I am sure they are not, by such as Roland,” was the reply. “A man who works one hour in the day, and plays eleven, would do less good at Port Natal than he would in his own country. A business man, thoroughly industrious, and possessing some capital, may make something at Port Natal, as he would at any other port. In the course of years he might realize a fortune—in the course of years, I say, Lady Augusta.”
This was not precisely the prospect Roland had pictured to Lady Augusta, or to which her own imagination had lent its hues, and she stood in consternation almost equal to Mr. Galloway’s. “What on earth will he do, then, when he gets there?” ejaculated she.
“Find out his mistake, my lady, and come home without a coat to his back, as hundreds have done before him, and worked their passage home, to get here. It is to be hoped he will have to do the same. It will teach him what work is.”
“There never was such an unhappy mother as I am!” bewailed my lady. “They will do just as they like, and always would, from George downwards: they won’t listen to me. Poor dear boy! reduced, perhaps, to live on brown bread and pea-soup!”
“And lucky to get that!” cried angry Mr. Galloway. “But the present question, Lady Augusta, is not what he may do when he gets to Port Natal, but what am I to do without him here. Look at the position it has placed me in!”
Lady Augusta could give neither help nor counsel. In good truth, it was not her fault. But she saw that Mr. Galloway seemed to think it was hers, or that it was partially hers. She departed home again, feeling cross with Roland, feeling damped about his expedition, and beginning to fancy that Port Natal might not, after all, bring her diamonds to wear, or offer her streets paved with malachite marble.
Mr. Galloway sat down, and reiterated the question in relation to himself, which Lady Augusta had put regarding Roland when he should arrive at Port Natal—What on earth was he to do? He could not close his office; he could not perform its various duties himself; he could not be out of doors and in, at one and the same time, unless, indeed, he cut himself in two! What was he to do?
It was more than Mr. Galloway could tell. He put his two hands upon his knees, and stared in consternation, feeling himself grow hot and cold alternately. Could Roland—then whirling along in the train, reclining at his ease, his legs up on the opposite cushion as he enjoyed a luxurious pipe, to the inestimable future benefit of the carriage—have taken a view of Mr. Galloway and his discomfiture, his delight would have been unbounded.