"Aha, my boy, aha," said the elder Sharp in that very same vein which always so annoyed and vexed his son; "what will you give me for a little secret, a sweet little secret about a young lady in whom you take the deepest interest?"
The ingenuous youth, in spite of all efforts, could not help blushing deeply; for he had a purely candid skin, reproduced from Piper ancestry. And the sense of hot cheeks made him glow to the vital centres of the nobler stuff. Therefore he scraped with his toes—which was a trick of his—and kept silence.
"Pocket money gone again?" continued his father pleasantly; "nothing to offer his kind papa for most valuable information? Courting is an expensive business—I ought to have remembered that. And the younger the parties the more it costs; hot-house flowers, and a smelling-bottle, a trifle of a ring, just to learn the size; that being accepted, the bolder brooch, charmed bracelet, and locket for the virgin heart—no wonder you are short of cash, my Kit."
"You don't know one atom about it," cried Christopher, boiling with meritorious wrath. "I never gave her nothing—and she wouldn't have it!"
"The double negative, to be sure. How forcible and how natural it is! Well, well, my boy, let us try to believe you. Scatter all doubts by exhibiting your wealth. You had five pounds and ten shillings lately; and you pay nothing for anything that can be placed to your father's credit. Let me see your cash-box, Kit."
"This is all that I have at present," said Christopher, pulling out his three-and-sixpence—for he had given the guard a shilling; "but you must not suppose that this is all to which I am entitled. I have I.O.U's from junior members of the University for really more than I can reckon up; and every one of them will get the money from his sisters, in the long vacation."
"Oh, Kit, Kit! The firm ends with me. I must sell the good-will for the very worst old song, if it once leaks out what a fool you are. By what strange cross of reckless blood can such a boy be the future head of Piper, Pepper, Sharp, & Co.?" Mr. Sharp covered up his long clear head, and hid—for this once—true emotion. Kit looked at the kerchief with a very queer glance. He was not at all affected by this lamentation, however just, because he had heard it so often before; and he never could make out exactly how much of him his father could manage to descry through that veil Palladian.
"Well, sir," he said, "you have always told me, as long as I can remember, that I was to be a gentleman; and gentlemen trust one another."
"Very well said!" Mr. Sharp replied, with a deeply irritating smile; "and now I will trust you, young sir, in a matter of importance. Remember that I trust you as a gentleman—for I need not tell you one word, unless I choose—and if I depart from my usual practice, it is partly because you are beginning to claim a sort of maturity. Very well, let us see if it can be relied upon. You pledge your word to keep silence, and I tell you what you never could find out."
Kit was divided with his mind in twain; whether he should draw the sharp falchion of his wit, or whether he should rather speak honeysome words; and, as nearly always happens when Minerva is admitted, he betook himself to the gentler process.