A Man's Man. Ian Hay

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СКАЧАТЬ characteristics was a habit of thinking aloud. He would emerge unexpectedly from a brown study, to comment to himself with stunning suddenness and absolute candour on the appearance and manners of those around him. It was credibly reported that he had once taken a rather intense and voluble lady in to dinner, and after regarding her for some time with a fixity of attention which had deluded the good soul into the belief that he was hanging on her lips, had remarked to himself, with appalling distinctness, during a lull in the conversation: "Guinea set—misfit at the top—gutta-percha fixings—wonder they don't drop into her soup!" and continued his meal without any apparent consciousness of having said anything unusual.

      He was eccentric, too, about other matters. Once Hughie, returning from school for his holidays, discovered that there had been an addition to the family in his absence.

      Mrs. Capper's very face in the hall told him that something was wrong. Its owner informed Hughie that though one should be prepared to take life as one found it, and live and let live had been her motto from infancy, her equilibrium ever since the thing had happened had lain at the mercy of the first aggressively disposed feather that came along, and what people in the neighbourhood would say she dared not think.

      She ran on. Hughie waited patiently, and presently unearthed the facts.

      A few weeks ago the master had returned from a protracted visit to London, bringing with him two children. He had announced that the pair were henceforth to be regarded as permanent inmates of the establishment. Beyond the fact that one brat was fair and a boy and the other darkish and a girl, and that Mrs. Capper had given warning on sight, Hughie could elicit nothing, and waited composedly for his uncle to come home from shooting.

      Jimmy Marrable, when he arrived, was not communicative. He merely stated that the little devils were the children of an old friend of his, called Gaymer, who had died suddenly and left them to be brought up by him as guardian.

      "And Hughie, my son," he concluded, "if you don't want your head bitten off you will refrain in this case from indulging in your propensity for asking why and getting to the bottom of things. I'm not best pleased at finding them on my hands, but here they are and there's an end of it. The girl is five—ten years younger than you—and the boy's eight. She is called Joan, and his idiotic name is Lancelot Wellesley. I wonder they didn't christen him Galahad Napoleon! Come upstairs and see them."

      All this had occurred seven years ago. During that time Lancelot Wellesley Gaymer had grown up sufficiently to go to a public school, and consequently Miss Joan Gaymer had been left very much in the company of the curious old gentleman whom she had soon learned to call Unker Zimmy. Of their relations it will be sufficient at present to mention that a more curiously assorted and more thoroughly devoted couple it would be difficult to find.

      Jimmy Marrable reclined on the window seat and smoked his cigar. His nephew, enviously eyeing the blue smoke, sprawled in an arm-chair.

      "Hughie," said the elder man suddenly, "how old are you? Twenty-one, isn't it?"

      "Yes."

      "And are you going down for good next week?"

      "Yes." Hughie sighed.

      "Got a degree?"

      "Tell you on Tuesday."

      "Tell me now."

      "Well—yes, I should think."

      "What in?"

       "Mechanical Stinks—Engineering. Second Class, if I'm lucky."

      "Um. Got any vices?"

      "Not specially."

      "Drink?"

      "No."

      "Not a teetotaller?" said Jimmy Marrable in some concern.

      "No."

      "That's good. Ever been drunk?"

      "Yes."

      "Badly, I mean. I'm not talking about bump-supper exhilaration."

      "Only once."

      "When?"

      "My first term."

      "What for?"

      "To see what it was like."

      "Perfectly sound proceeding," commented Jimmy Marrable. "What were your impressions of the experiment?"

      "I haven't got any," said Hughie frankly. "I only woke up next morning in bed with my boots on."

      "Who put you there?"

      "Seven other devils."

      "And you have not repeated the experiment?"

      "No. There's no need. I know my capacity to a glass now."

       "Then you know something really worth knowing," remarked Jimmy Marrable with sincerity. "Now, what are you going to do with yourself? Why not go and see the world a bit? You have always wanted to. And do it thoroughly while you are about it. Take five years over it; ten if you like. You will like, you know. It's in the blood. That's why I think you are wise not to want to enter the Service. You can always scrape in somewhere if there is a war, and barrack-life in time of peace would corrode your very heart out. It nearly killed your dad at five-and-twenty. That was why he exchanged and took to the Frontier, and ended his days in command of a Goorkha regiment. Life at first hand; that's what we Marrables thrive on! I never set foot in this country myself between the ages of twenty and thirty-three. I would come with you again if it wasn't for Anno Domini—and the nippers. But you'll find a good many old friends of mine dotted about the world. They're not all folk I could give you letters of introduction to—some of 'em don't speak English and others can't read and write; but they'll show you the ropes better than any courier. You take my advice, and go. England is no place for a young man with money and no particular profession, until he's over thirty and ready to marry. Will you go, Hughie?"

      Hughie's expression showed that he was considering the point rather reluctantly. His uncle continued:—

      "Money all right, I suppose? You have eight hundred a-year now you are of age. Got any debts, eh? I'll help you."

      "None to speak of. Thanks all the same."

      "Well; why not go?"

      "I should like to go more than anything," said Hughie slowly, "but—"

      "Well?"

      "I don't know—that is—"

      "I do," said Jimmy Marrable with characteristic frankness. "You are struggling between an instinct which tells you to do the sensible thing and an overpowering desire to do a dashed silly one."

      Hughie grew very red.

      His uncle continued:—

      "You want to marry that girl."

      Hughie blazed up.

      "I do," he said, rather defiantly.

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