Part 26 (2/2)

CHAPTER VI.

It was early in March before Archibald Druce was well enough to come to town. Morgan's working day ended at seven o'clock, and at that hour Archibald called at the printing establishment, and the two went off together.

Morgan was excited, and he could see his father was. Neither had any ”news,” since, in their exchange of letters, everything had already been told. Still, they talked a little about the home, and then there were further details of Archibald's illness. Both perhaps felt the meeting was a trifle cold, but they knew the constraint would melt away presently.

”I haven't yet thought how we're going to spend the evening,” said the old man. ”We must dine together somewhere. After that we might perhaps look in at a theatre; it won't matter if we are late.”

Morgan, who had no alternative suggestion to offer, readily fell in with this one, remarking that the dinner for him would be a rather magnificent kind of supper.

They eventually settled on a restaurant and ordered their repast.

Then, somehow, as they sat facing each other, their tongue-strings seemed to get loosened.

It was a long time since they had last met, and Archibald, who had been full of his book then, now confessed he had put it aside for the present. For several months past his mind had not been in sufficiently fresh condition to enable him to work on it. Morgan remembered now how he had suggested a t.i.tle for it half in scorn, and even such small remembrance was painful to him. He felt he had had something very like contempt for his father's literary scheme, forgetting, in the self-castigation of the moment, that at the time it had merely struck him humourously, and that his sin had not been quite so heinous as it now appeared to him. If the element of humour now coloured his vision of things but very slightly, that was only natural to his present stage of development.

They lingered over their coffee, not rising till about half-past eight.

”Suppose you just come and sit with me in my room, father,” said Morgan. ”If we have to decide on a theatre now, I am afraid we shall be quarrelling the rest of the evening. Besides, I do not want to acquire the habits of a young man about town. We can have a quiet talk for the rest of the evening.”

”Yes, I should like to see your place,” said his father. ”It will enable me to judge of your powers of graphic description.”

He was beginning to be more cheerful already and to show it. He took Morgan's arm affectionately, and they went back to Upper Thames street and crossed Southwark Bridge.

”I hope the woman hasn't forgotten to lay the fire,” said Morgan, as he turned the key.

A moment later he had lighted the cheap lamp and the room stood revealed in all its bareness. A small table, three wooden chairs, the little bed, a trunk in the corner, and a washstand, were insufficient to make it look furnished, garret as it was.

”I recognise the place,” said Archibald, depositing his things on the trunk. ”It's quite large and airy. You are lucky to have only the front walls sloping. But the window gives you a back view, so perhaps I ought to have said 'back walls.'”

Morgan lighted the fire, and the two sat down before it.

”What have you in that cupboard just by you?” asked Archibald. ”I feel inquisitive. I must get up and poke about.... Coals and crockery,” he enumerated with slow unction, ”a saucepan, a coffee-pot, a tea-pot, a broom, and some exceedingly dirty dusters. My dear Morgan, what a wonderfully compact place you have here; it's a miracle of completeness.”

”I've given up coffee at night, but I make excellent cocoa. You shall have some before you go.”

”Capital!” said the old fellow. ”I'm enjoying myself immensely. This is quite a picnic.”

”I am quite comfortable here,” said Morgan, half to himself.

”There's only one suggestion I have to make,” said his progenitor, ”and that is you ought to have just a strip of carpet under your feet, or a small rug would do just as well. Last year at home, now, I had the carpet taken out of the drawing-room, in favour of a polished floor, but, Lord bless you, I found myself doing nothing else but sneezing, in spite of the odd rugs, for in a drawing-room you don't just happen to think where you're standing. But here when you just sit down at your table or by your fire it would be so easy to take care you've got the thing underfoot. I must send you a rug to-morrow--you know I owe you a birthday present.”

”Birthday present! I had forgotten there were such things in the world. Thank you for reminding me, father. Such gifts, when they are sincere, add sweetness to life. And it will be nice to have something of yours here.”

The fire blazed up cheerfully. They sat a little while in silence.

”When do you calculate you will get those debts paid off?” asked Archibald at length.

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