Part 24 (1/2)
”Exactly.”
”But this was not exactly what you wanted. If he had treated you as though a father and son were necessarily of a different order of beings, had he been a little less familiar, a little colder, perhaps a thought more stern and forbidding in his parental way of pus.h.i.+ng the bottle to you, you would have liked him better?”
”No, not have liked him better; I might perhaps have thought it more natural.”
”Just so; you went to look for a papa with a boy's feelings, and the papa, who had not been looking for you at all, took you for a man as you are when he found you.”
”I am sure of this at any rate, that he was delighted to see me.”
”I am sure he was, and proud of you when he did see you. I never supposed but that the gallant colonel had some feelings in his bowels. Have you made any arrangements with him about money?”
”No--none.”
”Said not a word about so mundane a subject?”
”I don't say that; it is only natural that we should have said something. But as to income, he fights his battle, and I fight mine.”
”He should now have a large income from his profession.”
”And large expenses. I suppose there is no dearer place in Europe than Constantinople.”
”All places are dear to an Englishman exactly in comparison as he knows, or does not know, the ways of the place. A Turk, I have no doubt, could live there in a very genteel sort of manner on what you would consider a moderate pittance.”
”I suppose he could.”
”And Sir Lionel by this time should be a Turk in Turkey, a Greek in Greece, or a Persian in Bagdad.”
”Perhaps he is. But I was not. I know I shall be very fairly cleared out by the time I get to London; and yet I had expected to have three hundred pounds untouched there.”
”Such expectations always fall to the ground--always. Every quarter I allow myself exactly what I shall want, and then I double it for emergencies.”
”You are a lucky fellow to have the power to do so.”
”Yes, but then I put my quarterly wants at a _very_ low figure; a figure that would be quite unsuitable--quite unintelligible to the nephew of a Croesus.”
”The nephew of a Croesus will have to put his quarterly wants at something about fifty pounds, as far as I can see.”
”My dear fellow, when I observe that water bubbles up from a certain spot every winter and every spring, and occasionally in the warm weather too, I never think that it has run altogether dry because it may for a while cease to bubble up under the blazing sun of August.
Nature, of whose laws I know so much, tells me that the water will come again.”
”Yes, water will run in its natural course. But when you have been supplied by an artificial pipe, and have cut that off, it is probable that you may run short.”
”In such case I would say, that having a due regard to prudence, I would not cut off that very convenient artificial pipe.”
”One may pay too dear, Harcourt, even for one's water.”
”As far as I am able to judge, you have had yours without paying for it at all; and if you lose it, it will only be by your own obstinacy.
I would I had such an uncle to deal with.”
”I would you had; as for me, I tell you fairly, I do not mean to deal with him at all.”