‘Mr Finsbury,’ said the drawing-master, colouring, ‘you are not a man in narrow circumstances, and you have no family. Guendolen is growing up, a very promising girl—she was confirmed this year; and I think you will be able to enter into my feelings as a parent when I tell you she is quite ignorant of dancing. The boys are at the board school, which is all very well in its way; at least, I am the last man in the world to criticize the institutions of my native land. But I had fondly hoped that Harold might become a professional musician; and little Otho shows a quite remarkable vocation for the Church. I am not exactly an ambitious man...’
‘Well, well,’ interrupted Michael. ‘Be explicit; you think it’s Uncle Tim?’
‘It might be Uncle Tim,’ insisted Pitman, ‘and if it were, and I neglected the occasion, how could I ever look my children in the face? I do not refer to Mrs Pitman. . .’
‘No, you never do,’ said Michael.
‘. . . but in the case of her own brother returning from Ballarat. . .’ continued Pitman.
‘. . . with his mind unhinged,’ put in the lawyer.
‘. . . returning from Ballarat with a large fortune, her impatience may be more easily imagined than described,’ concluded Pitman.
‘All right,’ said Michael, ‘be it so. And what do you propose to do?’
‘I am going to Waterloo,’ said Pitman, ‘in disguise.’
‘All by your little self?’ enquired the lawyer. ‘Well, I hope you think it safe. Mind and send me word from the police cells.’