“Pardon me,” he said, with exquisite civility, “but to spoil my table will not do your affairs any good. It is a pity that you take such a very tragical view of the matter, but in your present state of mind nothing that I could say, I fear, would be of much use. Thick! thick! I don’t think this spot is likely to come out.”
“I am dreadfully sorry, uncle——” poor Harry began.
“Sorrow, so far as I am aware, does not take out ink-spots,” said the old gentleman, testily; “perhaps you will do me the favour to ring for Eadie. If things are so very serious the less we say about them the better—heated discussions are never any good. I can only say that if you like to stay a day or two you are quite welcome, Harry. Mrs. Eadie, look here; the ink-bottle has been filled too full, perhaps you know something that will take it out.”
“Dear, dear me!” Mrs. Eadie cried, with an anxious look from the old gentleman with his crisped lips to the young fellow standing much abashed beside him, “it’s that little lass again; but I take the blame to myself; I should never have trusted it out of my hands. Dear! dear! milk will may be do it. I wouldn’t like to try benzine or salts of lemon.”
“Try what you like, but get it out,” said Mr. Joscelyn. “I’ll see you, Harry, when I come back from the Club.”
“Oh, my bonnie young gentleman!” cried Mrs. Eadie, when they were left alone, “you have said something that’s gone against him! you have turned him the wrong way!”
“I think everything is turning the wrong way,” said Harry, throwing himself into his uncle’s easy-chair. He was still so young and unaccustomed to trouble that the tears came hot to his eyes. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Eadie, I’ll be off before he comes back; I’ll go straight off to my work, there’s nobody will turn the cold shoulder upon me there.”
“No, no, Mr. Harry, no, no, my canny lad, you must not be so hasty. Besides, you know as well as I do there’s no train. It’s coming out just with blotting-paper; look! see! When he comes back he’ll have forgotten all about it, and I’ll make you up a nice little bit of something for your lunch, and you’ll ’gree again, and get his advice. He’s grand with his advice, and he’s awfu’ fond of giving it. Just you ask him for his advice, Mr. Harry, and you’ll ’gree like two birds in a nest. It’s aye how I come round the maister when he has cast out with me.”
CHAPTER VIII.
UNCLE HARRY’S ADVICE.
MR. JOSCELYN returned from the Club to lunch, which was not very usual for him. After all, at the bottom of his heart, there was a vein of kindness in him for the boy whom he had trained. After his little anger wore off, Harry’s face, so tragical in its expression, came back to his mind with a mixture of amusement and compassion. It was tragic-comic to Mr. Henry; but there was no comic element in it to the young man. He came home by no means intending to put himself in the breach, and replace for Harry’s benefit that thousand pounds of his mother’s money, which the young fellow had calculated upon; but still with an impulse of kindness. A thousand pounds! That was a pretty sort of fortune for the woman who married Joscelyn of White House. It made him laugh with angry scorn. Little insignificant woman, whose pretty face even was nothing out of the way, a kind of prettiness that faded, a sort of parson’s daughter’s gentility, not even anything that could be called beauty, or that would last. Mr. Henry Joscelyn had been absent from the district, he had not yet retired from “the world,” as he called it, when his nephew married, and he had never known before exactly how bad a match it was. Ralph was a clown to be sure, in himself worthy no better fate; but the head of the Joscelyns, Mr. Henry reflected with a bitter smile, might certainly have been worth something more than a thousand pounds. It was ridiculous, it was exasperating; he did not wonder that Ralph had been angry when his son had asked for this paltry thousand pounds. Considered as a fee for the privilege of entering the Joscelyn family, it was ridiculously inadequate—and as a fortune! He laughed aloud as he crossed the street to the Club, an angry laugh. After all it was not much wonder that Ralph had deteriorated. A wife with a faded face, no ancestors, and a thousand pounds—poor Ralph! if he had not been so insufferable his uncle would have been sorry for him. And now here was the boy asserting a claim to this enormous fortune; probably Mrs. Joscelyn herself thought it a great sum of money, enough to set up Harry in business, and do a great deal for him. Tck-tck! how mean and petty it all was, not like the old ways of the house, which were not small whatever they were. The Joscelyns in their day had gone into debt in a princely manner; and they had married money in their day; but to come to such a point that the mother’s great fortune of a thousand pounds was worth fighting about, between father and son! Tck-tck, tck-tck, what a wonderful thing it was!