“Indeed!” says the Baronet, with an air of great surprise. “You are going down to look at the cradle of our race. I believe the Newcomes were there before the Conqueror. It was but a village in our grandfather’s time, and it is an immense flourishing town now, for which I hope to get—I expect to get—a charter.”
“Do you?” says the Colonel. “I am going down there to see a relation.”
“A relation! What relatives have we there?” cries the Baronet. “My children, with the exception of Barnes. Barnes, this is your uncle Colonel Thomas Newcome. I have great pleasure, brother, in introducing you to my eldest son.”
A fair-haired young gentleman, languid and pale, and arrayed in the very height of fashion, made his appearance at this juncture in the parlour, and returned Colonel Newcome’s greeting with a smiling acknowledgment of his own. “Very happy to see you, I’m sure,” said the young man. “You find London very much changed since you were here? Very good time to come—the very full of the season.”
Poor Thomas Newcome was quite abashed by this strange reception. Here was a man, hungry for affection, and one relation asked him to dinner next Monday, and another invited him to shoot pheasants at Christmas. Here was a beardless young sprig, who patronised him, and vouchsafed to ask him whether he found London was changed.
“I don’t know whether it’s changed,” says the Colonel, biting his nails; “I know it’s not what I expected to find it.”
“To-day it’s really as hot as I should thing it must be in India,” says young Mr. Barnes Newcome.
“Hot!” says the Colonel, with a grin. “It seems to me you are all cool enough here.”
“Just what Sir Thomas de Boots said, sir,” says Barnes, turning round to his father. “Don’t you remember when he came home from Bombay? I recollect his saying, at Lady Featherstone’s, one dooced hot night, as it seemed to us; I recklect his saying that he felt quite cold. Did you know him in India, Colonel Newcome? He’s liked at the Horse Guards, but he’s hated in his regiment.”
Colonel Newcome here growled a wish regarding the ultimate fate of Sir Thomas de Boots, which we trust may never be realised by that distinguished cavalry officer.