“Oh!”
Morty grew to hate that branding interjection. And that prophecy of Jowell’s, that he would never be ashamed of his old Governor, was falsified every day.
Sometimes he would begin to fear that he hated the man who had begotten him. This acute stage of his complaint was reached when it began to be known that the Allies would winter on the Black Sea. For forage, and clothing, and provisions, and all that the Army needed, it was said, was being sent out in the great Government transport, The Realm, from Portsmouth Dockyard.... What wonder that the boy, unwilling sharer in the grisly secret that made the stiff gray hair of Thompson Jowell bristle on his head o’ nights, was galled and tortured! His apprehension had ridden him as though he had been another Sindbad, throttled by the hairy incubus of the immortal story. Then he had hit on a plan for getting rid of this dreadful Old Man of the Sea.
He had taken his courage in both hands and written boldly to his father, maintaining at the same time a caution that made him shudder at himself. For lest Jowell’s murderous secret should leave bloody finger-marks on every page, it was necessary to be ambiguous. Yet he had conveyed his meaning clearly, and the final sentence, with all its crudity, had the ring of steel on stone.
“Sinse I Caim out Here I Have Bigun to understand Better than I did Bifore What you Meant by What you Said that Night at Dinner. And if you Do this Thing that you have Planned to do, I will never come Home Agane or call myself by your Naim, or take another Six-pens of your Money. As God lives, I won’t, so now you Know! My mother shall hear the Truth and Chuse between us! It is Hard on a Fellow To have to rite like this to His Father, but You Have Brought it on yourself!”
There was a postscript:
“Remember I will never come Home or Call myself by your Naim, or Take another Peny of your Monney. Don’t do it, Gov.! Don’t do it for God’s saik. He might Forgive you. I Never shold, I Know!
“M.”
You are to imagine Thompson Jowell perusing this composition with eyes that whirled in their shallow round orbits, and a complexion that underwent strange changes, deepening from fiery red to muddy purple, and from muddy purple to pale sea-green.
The letter had been directed to his place of business in the City. When he blundered up out of his office-chair, crumpling it in his shaking hand, he was dizzy, and there was a singing in his ears. That his boy should even dream of turning against his old Governor was preposterous and absurd, if appalling. The letter was a bit of high-flown nonsense. Nothing would ever come of it! But yet he shook in every limb, and his shirt was damp upon his back.