Part 64 (2/2)
”I wish Skeffy was here,” said Tony, as they went downstairs.
”Do you know Skeff Darner, then?”
”Know him! I believe he 's about the fellow I like best in the world.”
”So do I,” cried the other, warmly; ”he hasn't his equal living; he 's the best-hearted and he's the cleverest fellow I ever met.”
And now they both set to, as really only young friends ever do, to extol a loved one with that heartiness that neither knows limit nor measure.
What a good fellow he was,--how much of this, without the least of that,--how unspoiled, too, in the midst of the flattery he met with!
”If you just saw him as I did a few days back,” said Tony, calling up in memory Skeffy's hearty enjoyment of their humble cottage-life.
”If you but knew how they think of him in the Office,” said Blount, whose voice actually trembled as he touched on the holy of holies.
”Confound the Office!” cried Tony. ”Yes; don't look shocked. I hate that dreary old house, and I detest the grim old fellows inside of it.”
”They 're severe, certainly,” muttered the other, in a deprecatory tone.
”Severe isn't the name for it. They insult--they outrage--that's what they do. I take it that you and the other young fellows here are gentlemen, and I ask, Why do you bear it,--why do you put up with it?
Perhaps you like it, however.”
”No; we don't like it,” said he, with an honest simplicity.
”Then, I ask again, why do you stand it?”
”I believe we stand it just because we can't help it.”
”Can't help it!”
”What _could_ we do? What would _you_ do?” asked Blount
”I 'd go straight at the first man that insulted me, and say, Retract that, or I 'll pitch you over the banisters.”
”That's all very fine with you fellows who have great connections and powerful relatives ready to stand by you and pull you out of any sc.r.a.pe, and then, if the worst comes, have means enough to live without work.
That will do very well for you and Skeffy. Skeffy will have six thousand a year one of these days. No one can keep him out of Digby Darner's estate; and you, for aught I know, may have more.”
”I have n't sixpence, nor the expectation of sixpence in the world. If I am plucked at this examination I may go and enlist, or turn navvy, or go and sweep away the dead leaves like that fellow yonder.”
”Then take my advice, and don't go up.”
”Go up where?”
”Don't go up to be examined; just wait here in town; don't show too often at the office, but come up of a morning about twelve,--I 'm generally down here by that time. There will be a great press for messengers soon, for they have made a regulation about one going only so far, and another taking up his bag and handing it on to a third; and the consequence is, there are three now stuck fast at Ma.r.s.eilles, and two at Belgrade, and all the Constantinople despatches have gone round by the Cape. Of course, as I say, they 'll have to alter this, and then we shall suddenly want every fellow we can lay hands on; so all you have to do is just to be ready, and I 'll take care to start you at the first chance.”
”You 're a good fellow,” cried Tony, grasping his hand; ”if you only knew what a bad swimmer it was you picked out of the water.”
”Oh, I can do that much, at least,” said he, modestly, ”though I'm not a clever fellow like Skeffy; but I must go back, or I shall 'catch it.'
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