Mrs. Rollinson, much astonished at this commendation of her presumed opinions, could find no words either to protest or to agree. She smoothed her crimped hair and bowed.
“But perhaps,” he went on in the same amazing tones of deference, “perhaps you won’t mind if I point out that we’re living now in a very fair state of comfort. We have roast meat every other day; if you feel inclined to go now and again to see Mr. Wigan at the St. James’s, why, you’ve only got to say so. And this brings me to the point of what I’m talking about. Why shouldn’t we go on as we’re going now, not wasting money specially, not ’oarding it to any special degree, but going a reg’lar buster in regard to the boy? Giving him chances that his father never had, seeing that he has every opportunity of growing up so that he can take his place amongst the ’ighest of the land? Now then, Mrs. R.! If you’ve got anything further to remark on the subject, here’s the time to say it, or ever after hold your peace.”
“Sometimes,” she ventured to remark, “you’ve pitched into me and told me I was spoiling him.”
“There’s a right way of doing it,” he retorted, “and a wrong way of doing it.”
“And you’ve said, more than once, that to make a man of him he ought to go through the mill, same as what you did.”
“There again, there’s two ways open.”
“If you can find the right way, Mr. R., I’m perfectly agreeable.”
“You’re a wise woman,” he declared, “although very often you manage to conceal the fact. And I promise you faithfully that if you leave it all to me, you won’t have no reason to be sorry!”
Ernest grew up tall, slim, good-looking, and with fair, curly hair; it was therefore reckoned impossible to make him a doctor. Apart from this, he showed no special intelligence, and at the new military college at Sandhurst the masters said caustically it was a pity the lad had not been born in America, for then the Civil War there would have been of very short duration. Discouraged by these comments, Ernest, of his own accord, left the College, thus depriving the British army of his services, and, coming back to town, took rooms in Jermyn Street, and mentioned to his father and mother that he proposed to look about him, a task which it is well known cannot be done in a hurry. Money was supplied from Bloomsbury Square, and it appeared to have some peculiar quality, for it all slipped through Ernest’s fingers with the greatest possible ease. Having, in spite of his defects, an amiable disposition, he soon found acquaintances, mainly amongst other men who were also looking about, and when they discovered he had money at his command, and that his cheques were always—after sometimes a brief delay—honoured, their admiration of his qualities knew no bounds.
“You’ve got a simple manner,” they said, “but, by gad, underneath that there’s any amount of cunning and cleverness.”