Part 26 (1/2)

Aymer held out his hand.

”Yes, I've heard of you, Sam. Sit down, won't you?”

Sam sat down, his hands on his knees, and tried to find a safe spot on which to focus his eyes.

”Now, isn't it a jolly room,” began Christopher triumphantly, ”didn't I tell you?”

”It's big,” said Sam cautiously.

”Christopher, behave yourself. Don't mind his bad manners, Sam. It's sheer nervousness on his part, he can't help it.”

A newspaper was flung dexterously across his face.

”Which gives point to my remark,” continued Aymer, calmly folding it.

”Well, have you enjoyed your day? Madness, I call it, the river in March!”

Christopher plunged into an account of their jaunt to which his companion listened in complete bewilderment, hardly recognising the simple pleasures of their holiday in their dress of finished detail and humour.

”Is that a true account?” asked Aymer, catching the tail of a broad grin.

”I didn't see the water-rat dressing himself, or the girl with the red shoes,” said Sam slowly. ”My, what a chap you are, Christopher, to spin a yarn. Wish I could reel it off to mother and the kids like that.”

He found himself in a few minutes discoursing with Aymer on the variety and history of his family. It was not for some minutes or so that the great subject was approached.

”I suppose,” said Aymer at last, ”I need not ask if you and Christopher have been discussing his little plan for your future. What do you think of it, Sam?”

Christopher got up and walked to the window. Minute by minute a sense of overwhelming disappointment and shame obliterated the once plausible idea. It was not only an opportunity missed, it was wasted, thrown away. What glory or distinctions, what ambitions could be fulfilled in the narrow confines of a grocer's shop--a nightmare vision of an interminable vista of red canisters, mahogany counters, biscuit boxes and marble slabs, swam before his eyes. It was no use denying it. It was a cruel disappointment ... and what would Caesar think?

Meanwhile Sam, in answer to Aymer's questions, had stumbled out the statement he thought it a rattling fine thing for him and was very much obliged.

”And you know your own mind on the point?” demanded Aymer, watching him closely.

Sam coughed nervously. ”Yes, I always knew what I wanted to be. I told him,” with a backward jerk of his head towards Christopher.

This was better than Aymer had expected. A boy with an ambition and a mind of his own was worth a.s.sisting.

”Well, what is it. Will you tell me too?”

Sam looked at him out of the corner of his shrewd eyes. ”It's you as is really doing it, sir?”

”What is it?”

”It's like this,” began Sam, hesitating; ”it costs money,--my top ambition; but it's a paying thing and if anyone would be kind enough to start me on it I'd work off the money in time. I know I could.”

”I'm afraid Christopher hasn't quite explained,” said Aymer quietly; ”it's not a question of investing money on your industry. I don't expect him to pay back the cost of starting him in life. You are to start on precisely the same ground.”

Sam got red. ”He--he belongs to you--it's different,” he began.

”What is your ambition?”