XV
Bobbie and Poetic Justice
They arrived by the 6.15 train as Henry had suggested—my brother Henry and his youngest son. "Suggested" struck me as being a rather inappropriate word to use for a visit at a bare day's notice, and the conventional phrase "if quite convenient to you" has a tinge of gratuitous insincerity when the letter containing it is delivered seven minutes after their train has left Paddington. But that is Henry all over. As a boy he was always anxious to share his broken toys with me and to assume an equal interest in the contents of my much better kept play-box. At school he was ready to take my part through thick and thin, but in return he seemed to expect me to throw myself unquestioningly on his side. On several occasions I plainly recognised that he was in the wrong, and I had to tell him so.
"I cannot conscientiously stick up for you in this," I would say; "but I shall not actively oppose you, because you are my brother."
There were periods of coldness between us, but no quarrels.
"Oh, all right, don't excite yourself about that; I can't help being your brother," was his usual retort; but once, I remember, the boy whose conduct I was actually approving took Henry's arm and walked off with him, throwing the word "Sneak!" over his shoulder. When, later in life, I came to my brother's assistance to the extent of five hundred pounds, at a rate of interest that was perfectly nominal in comparison with the risk involved, he never showed—I don’t want to misjudge him, but I certainly never observed—by the subtlest shade of deference that the action had struck him as in any way magnanimous.
I do not ignore the fact that it was chiefly through his information and advice in the matter of the Great Glory Reefs that I am now able to devote myself entirely to my private pursuits, but if a balance of our whole lives was taken, I think it would be found that Henry has come off very well indeed, and although I should hesitate to call him ungrateful, he certainly appears to take a good deal as a matter of course.
"I knew that you wouldn't mind rather short notice, old chap," he said at dinner (his extreme heartiness and display of fraternal affection are becoming rather trying at our ages); "and, as far as that goes, I did not know myself before yesterday. Now, how long do you think that I can stay?"
"The week-end at the least," I replied, with as near an approach to his own geniality as I could summon up. "Perhaps even a whole week; but I know how busy you are."
"Eighteen hours," he said decidedly. "To-morrow; the twelve-thirty. Now what do you think of that?"
"It seems hardly worth while coming for," I replied sincerely. "Can't you possibly make it—say a full day? There is a very good night train."
"I'm afraid not," he said, with quite a despondent air. "You see, it would cut into the next morning. As you say, it does hardly seem worth the journey, only I happened to have some business at Bristol. If it had not been for that I expect I should have sent Bobbie on alone."
"Bobbie?" I said, not catching his meaning. "Bobbie?"
"Why, yes," he continued cheerfully; "there is no particular hurry in his case, so I thought that I'd ask you to take him over for a few weeks. Measles, you know."
"What!" I exclaimed. "He has measles? Really, Henry"
"Not at all," he interrupted with a smile; "only Florrie has. Consequently Bobbie can't go to school, and we thought that he'd be all the better out of the way."
"Out of your way?" I suggested, with perhaps just a shade of emphasis.
"Yes," he agreed simply; "Mary's in particular. She has enough to see to just now, dear woman."
"Oh," was all I said, but a moment later, feeling that something more was required, I added, "So this is Bobbie. It must be ten years since I saw him last. Now is he the Musical Prodigy or the Artistic Genius?" Of course I really knew that Bobbie was neither, but the remark came to my lips. All Henry's children are wonderful, and the surprising fact is that they seem able to convince other people of it besides their parents. I have given up the Trafalgar Magazine because of the frequency with which Vernon's drawings appeared in its pages, and any day if I am foolish enough to look down the outside sheet of the Telegraph I can be annoyed by seeing that Gertrude is singing "At Camberwell," or "In the City"—wherever that may exactly be. Bobbie was sure to be Something.
"No," replied Henry, "neither of those. He is the Scientific Phenomenon and engages in obscure mysteries in the back-kitchen. Chemistry, isn't it, Bobbie?"
"Yes, father," replied the boy, but at the mere word "chemistry" I saw him flush suddenly and pull nervously at his collar, before he edged away behind a palm. The action was Henry's to the life. I could see him then, flushing and pulling at his collar thirty years ago at the casual mention of our cousin Mary.
"Chemistry, eh, my fine fellow?" I said encouragingly. "Then perhaps we shall be able to do one or two little experiments together and make a Roscoe of you yet." I should explain that chemistry—serious investigation I mean, of course, although I descended to Bobbie's level for the occasion—is the work to which I have devoted my life.
"Yes," said his father; "it's rather curious, now that I think of it. He was called after you, Robert."
Evidently he was already classing us together! And called after me; one knows what that means in the case of rich uncles.
"Oh, I had forgotten," I replied ingenuously. "Robert Barridge Troves?"
"No; only Robert," he admitted. "I was only referring to that."
"Ah! not Barridge, I thought," I said conclusively. So Bobbie was left on my hands for that delightfully indefinite period referred to as "a few weeks." "You won't find him a nuisance, I am sure," his father had said on leaving. "He has a unique gift of effacing himself completely; and I daresay that you can make him useful in your laboratory." I daresay, but the idea of giving a young ruffian the run of my most expensive instruments did not attract me. Why, the maid servants are never allowed to pass inside the door, and when the most careful Willet cleans the room up once a week it is only under my immediate eye. Nevertheless, I took him up, and standing with him by the door I pointed out the remarkable convenience of all the arrangements and the many delicate and costly instrumerits. Somewhat to my surprise he knew the names of most of these, and even had a crude idea of their uses.
He was wonderfully like what Henry used to be at the same age, as I discovered more and more; also, it struck me next, curiously like some young animal—yes, an intelligent young dog. He had a way of coming quite close to one's side and looking up to see the expression as though it meant more than spoken words. He stood like that now at the door of my laboratory, so near that he pressed unconsciously against me until I moved away a little. As I spoke he watched my face, the emotions changing his own as openly as the clouds passing before the sun. It would not have required a great effort to imagine him whining or pricking up his ears, and when at last I turned to go he followed me like a hungry but obedient animal slowly retiring from a butcher's shop.
"Aren't I to be allowed in there, uncle, to do things?" he asked in a low voice, a whisper indeed, when I had locked the door, and as we walked away he took my hand—or, rather, tried to take my hand—in his eagerness.
"Oh, no, Bobbie," I replied very decidedly. "It is hardly the place for little boys to amuse themselves in. Think of the things I have shown you: the spectroscope and eudiometers, the air-pumps, Crookes' different apparatuses, and the intricate balances. A touch, a thoughtless frisk, and before you remember where you are, pounds and pounds' worth of damage is done. Now if I give you a little mercuric oxide and a test-tube, wouldn't you like to make oxygen in the scullery and surprise Jane by burning iron in it?"
I do not attempt to describe the look with which my young nephew received this well-meant attempt on my part to enter into his fancy for playing at chemistry, for I am sure that it would be beyond the power of a pen usually devoted to the precise and exact formulæ of science. Perhaps had I then known that he had taken a high South Kensington certificate for practical analysis I might have framed the offer a little differently, but, after all, these science and art diplomas are recognised even among beginners as the brand of mediocre amateurism. I never thought it worth while competing for one myself, nor do I imagine that that eminent scientist and neighbour of mine, Sir Walter Bent, ever sought the questionable distinction; certainly I never heard him mention the fact ostentatiously if he had, in the way Bobbie has done more than once.
"What's the good of making oxygen out of mercuric oxide?" replied Bobbie, when, I suppose, he had looked at me as long as he wanted. "Why, it's one of the very first experiments, uncle. Don't you always feel that you want to find out things that have never been done before? I know that I do."
This, as one may imagine, amused me considerably.
"Why, my lad," I replied tolerantly, "what is there to find out? Nothing—practically nothing; certainly nothing that you will ever do. Of course, from time to time there will occasionally be some obscure discovery, but rest assured that on broad lines the limit of knowledge is almost reached."
I ought to be able to speak definitely on this point, because, as a matter of fact, until I recognised the futility of it, I had wasted some valuable time in speculative experimenting myself.
As far as his manner in general went, this nephew of mine was studiously respectful after he had once understood that I would have no childish affectation, but on this one subject I charitably assume that he is not entirely responsible for the nonsense that he talks.
"Nothing to be found out!" he cried vehemently. "Why, uncle, there is everything yet. Nothing, nothing has been found out compared with what there must be. And to be content not to try is like—well, like a painter going on copying old pictures all his life."
I reproved him quietly, for it was out of the question to enter into an argument. Then I sent him to play in the garden, and went back to my own work. I only mention the incident now to show how immature and undisciplined his ideas were.
Some days later Bobbie approached me with a formal request. At the bottom of the garden he had found a tool-house which no one seemed to use, but it contained a bench and a fireplace, and was fitted with gas and water. Could he have this place "to do as he liked there?" I impressed on his young mind the fact that this would be a considerable privilege by withholding my decision for two days, and putting him on a rigorous trial during that period. But I need hardly say that the prospect of removing him to the bottom of the garden for the greater part of his visit was equally attractive to me, so at the end of the two days, after telling him that I was disappointed in him on the whole, I gave him permission. Nay, more, having just restocked the shelves and cupboards of my laboratory, I allowed him to carry away all the superfluous acids and reagents, and an accumulation of faulty test-tubes and other unserviceable glass.
I claim no particular merit in this; the liquids would otherwise have gone down the sink and the glass into the dust-cart, but the fact remains, and although I have never mentioned the obligation before, it is obvious that if the boy had really chanced to stumble upon any insignificant discovery (which I had never for a moment been disposed to admit), no inconsiderable share of the performance might be justly apportioned elsewhere.
How he passed his time I cannot say, for I never had the curiosity to enter the outhouse while he was there, and immediately after his return to London I ordered Willet to throw away everything that it contained, and to whitewash the place thoroughly. If he had been so careless as to blow himself up or to drink oxalic acid, I should have regarded the accident as outside my responsibility after the confidence which his own father had expressed. I saw very little of him except at mealtimes, and I have since learned that when I was out he persuaded the cook (this self-effacing boy who would never be a nuisance) to let him smuggle down to the tool-house food not only for himself but also to feed, at my expense, a youth of the village whom he selected as an associate.
This person, Blithers by name, was the son of the local chemist, and although I understand that at home he showed a marked dislike for his father's business, he professed to become so attracted to Bobbie's society that he willingly and even enthusiastically accepted the position of honorary assistant in the tool-house. This, at least, was the view presented by the invaluable Willet in response to a hint on my part that he might occasionally find it necessary to loiter about the door of the shed and to look in at the windows as he passed, but one does not go through life without learning to become sceptical of these disinterested friendships, and the importance which a young person in Blithers's position would receive among his ordinary companions if he could claim a connection however remote, with "The Grange," supplies a much more reasonable explanation.
The incentive on Bobbie's part is even less creditable, for it is now established beyond all doubt that the unhappy Blithers, in order to ingratiate himself, pilfered (yes, I am sorry that I am unable to substitute a milder term, but that is the exact expression)—pilfered from his father's stock small but frequent supplies when their united pocket-money had become exhausted. I am perfectly well aware that no criminal action is being taken in the matter; that Blithers senior has been so weak-minded as to declare publicly that for the first time in his life he is proud of his son; and that a number of ridiculous comparisons have been made to the tenacity of a Dalton, the diffidence of a Cavendish, the fortuitous energy of a Priestley, and so on, but the one reliable fact standing among a mass of pretension and fulsome adulation is that this so-called new mineral owes its isolation to theft, and all who countenance its soi-disant "discoverer" are directly encouraging a felony.
About this time I finished a series of investigations on which I had been engaged in connection with our celebrated Campton chalybeate spring. It is usually referred to here as "celebrated," though I have never met any living soul ten miles beyond the Campton market cross who had ever heard of it; and one has to travel very little farther than that to find a majority who have even heard of Campton. Yet it has been conclusively proved that in similar circumstances the Campton water would be equally efficacious as that of Contrexéville, and competent local authorities have been unable to detect any inferiority in it to the products of Spa, Schwalbach, or Pyrmont; while, coming nearer home, it is frequently admitted that under capable development Campton might reasonably aspire to usurp the position of Harrogate as a health resort. In this labour, apart from the fascination of verifying the results of previous analysts, I confess that I had a second object.
I have already spoken of our distinguished resident, Sir Walter Bent. I had long recognised the advantage which would lie in being associated scientifically with this great man, and in consequence I had frequently placed myself in such a position that a meeting under the most favourable auspices might be reasonably brought about. Unfortunately, Sir Walter did not enter at all into the social life of the district, and his memory was so bad, or his pre-occupation so great, that my discreet advances, which the easy etiquette of the countryside permitted on our chance encounters led to nothing.
On one occasion, for a period of a week, I spent every day, beginning at a very early hour indeed, geologising in some disused lime-pits a couple of miles outside the village on the Cornwall road. From a monograph which he had recently contributed to one of the reviews, I knew that Sir Walter was keenly interested in the Devonian strata, so that when I heard in an indirect way that he had spoken of spending that week working in the Cornwall road, the deduction was a very natural one on my part. The opportunity of being there before him and almost, as it were, receiving him attracted me.
As I have said, I did actually carry out this idea, and through a week of very unpleasant weather I resolutely held my ground, although the early start, the conditions under which I took my meals, and the uncongenial nature of the occupation (in which I felt no real interest) tried my patience repeatedly. At the end of the week as I passed the railway station on my way home I discerned the object of all my amiable strategy alighting from the London train. I then learned that he had been up in town all the time, carrying on some research at the Natural History Museum, and that his reference had in reality been to Cromwell Road, which the artless Willet had either misheard or simple-mindedly confused with the better-known local highway.
I will not deny that this experience depressed me, and for the next few months I retained a conviction that independent research on my part would be the most beneficial to science in the end. Then, however, it was reported that Sir Walter had been taking the Campton water, and had derived some benefit from it; the project for developing the property was again raised, and the moment seemed an auspicious one for me to identify myself prominently with the subject. Doubtless I had referred to the work I had taken in hand to Henry in Bobbie’s hearing, for during the first few days the boy had been persistent in his usual vein.
"Oh, uncle, you'll let me help you with the analysis, won't you?" he had cried excitedly, as soon as his father had gone, and even my reply that the work was of far too delicate a kind to be entrusted in any detail to the rough-and-ready practice of a school-boy did not repress him.
"Well, I suppose you have to be awfully careful about it," he admitted frankly. "Never mind, uncle; perhaps I can be doing something else while you are on that."
"You have to be very careful indeed," I said impressively. "Sometimes it is necessary to make repeated tests for so minute a quantity as a thousandth part of a grain—perhaps a mere speck to the naked eye—in a gallon of water."
"Yes," he replied, nodding carelessly. "Jehnsen's gold test reveals .0004 of a grain to the gallon."
I suppose these smatterings of general information are taught nowadays in the lower forms as "Nature Study." I dislike the system, and would have shown Bobbie how little real use a single superficial fact like that was when he suddenly went off on another line.
"Oh, I say, uncle," he exclaimed, "do you expect to find anything new in the Campton water? How spiffing if you do! What shall you call it? Have you got anything yet?"
"My good nephew," I said, "it is necessary to use common-sense in these matters, and I shall not even look for 'anything new,' as you so crudely term it. Recollect that the water has been minutely examined possibly a dozen or more times already."
"Then why do you want to do it again?" he demanded. "I see no fun in that, if you're satisfied."
"One does not conduct delicate and protracted experiments for fun," I replied. "The valuable corroboration of what has been previously arrived at by others is in itself a worthy and sufficient end, and the possibility of detecting a fractional variation, in one of the constituents gives an added zest."
"Well," he persisted, "I suppose that the waters at Bath had been analysed often enough before, but they found radium in them, for all that."
I could not refrain from smiling at his simplicity.
"Suppose, Bobbie," I said, "assuming the frankly absurd, and supposing that our spring did contain an unknown matter in solution, how much do you think that there would be in a gallon of water? The 'something new' would not be floating about in it like a duck's egg, you know."
"Well, admitting that it would be so minute that no test could detect it, and no microscope show it even if it could be collected, it would only be a thousandth part of what you could get from a thousand gallons," replied the foolish boy. "That might be appreciable."
I have seen it stated somewhere recently that no one says, "Pish!" or "Tush!" nowadays. It is a mistake; I said both to close the conversation, and sending Bobbie down the garden I went to my own work.
I was now composing the article embodying the results of my examination. These, as I have indicated, I had never expected to be startling, but they were painstaking and sound. I showed that Perring, who last analysed the water, in 1879, had made a miscalculation of an appreciable fraction of a grain in the amount of sulphate of soda.
Dealing with the historical aspect of the spring, I pointed out that as William of Orange must have passed within twenty miles of Campton on his march from Torbay, there was nothing extravagant in surmising that he might possibly have made an unrecorded detour to enjoy its benefits. This point had never been brought out before, but when the state of that monarch’s health is considered, the theory becomes more and more feasible, and it has the advantage that if it came to be generally accepted it would confer upon Campton the royal patronage which seems to be essential to the popularity of any modern spa.
The article finished, I sent it to the local newspaper. I confess that a more classical medium would have pleased me better, but the pages of the "Transactions" of the various Societies are not impartially open, nor are those who control them amenable to social or commercial inducements. To the editor of the newspaper I explained who I was, and delicately suggested that I should probably require at least five dozen copies of the issue containing the article. Needless to say it was inserted, though not in the type which I myself would have chosen, nor in a position suitable to its importance. Furthermore, some of the typographical mistakes were appalling, especially in the matter of figures. I trust that the unknown readers were intelligent and discriminating, otherwise a too literal acceptance of the analysis would convey the impression that a gallon of the water contained three pounds of iron, half a hundredweight of lime, and so forth. In my own copies I neatly corrected these glaring absurdities, and then dispatched them by post to all the local notabilities.
To Sir Walter Bent I took the precaution of sending three marked copies. This was chiefly on account of his notorious absent-mindedness, and to make it more certain of catching his eye, I had one copy sent from London and another enclosed in a blue envelope marked "Private." I state these facts openly. I, at any rate, had nothing to fear from the fullest publicity. It has been related to me in confidence that my action throughout has furnished some amusement in certain quarters. Let it, I reply; it is at least free from the taint of criminality; it has never stooped to duplicity, belauded theft, nor compounded with felony. I repeat: Let it. I am not troubled by the opinion of my neighbours, I trust, and in any case it could not affect me, as I have accepted an invitation to spend Christmas in London, and am shutting up "The Grange" for some time.
The critical period, I have learned from Nature, is brief. The astronomer follows the course of a star for days, it may be, to note the phenomenon of a momentary contact; in a second the culmination of a protracted experiment is reached and passed with failure or success; after weeks of wavering the crisis of a fever arrives, and then and there the thing is settled. Therefore, having made my explanation, with no pretence of art but in a spirit of absolute candour, I will hasten on to what ensued.
Sir Walter would have received the papers on Wednesday morning. I hoped that Thursday would not pass without a sign of interest on his part, but the hope was not untempered by a doubt which rather loomed than lurked. However, on coming down to breakfast on Thursday, I saw at once that there was only one letter in my place, and with a thrill of expectation I recognised the Bent crest. I opened it at once; it ran as follows:
"Yours truly,
"Walter Bent."
At first I only glanced hurriedly down the lines, experiencing an almost astonished satisfaction at the extent to which I had—to use a term current, I believe, in financial circles—"roped in" the great scientist. With a second and closer reading, an element of indefinable doubt crept into my mind. It is true that in the course of the article I had found it necessary to refer to myself (though strictly in the third person), and even to touch lightly on my qualifications, but I could recall no expression indicating that I laboured under any difficulties whatever; it is equally true that I had written of Sir Walter himself in terms of graceful appreciation, but with no suggestion that called for his allusion to definite proof. I was beginning the letter for a third time when my nephew, who had been in the room all the time, I suppose, although I had not noticed him before, interrupted me.
"Excuse me, uncle," he said, "but as you seem puzzled, perhaps that letter is not for you."
I laid it down on the table and looked at him in speechless astonishment. Then I turned mechanically to the envelope.
"Robert Troves, Esq., The Grange, Campton," I read aloud, and looked at him again. What on earth could he mean?
"Robert Barridge Troves?" he inquired politely. For two or three weeks the politeness of his tone whenever he has had occasion to address me has been overwhelming.
"No, simply 'Robert Troves,'" I said. Still I guessed nothing.
"Ah, not Barridge, I thought," he replied in the same courteous tone, but with a gleam in his eye, and I was so mystified at the time that it was not until several days later that, reviewing the conversation, I longed to box his ears.
"This letter is from Sir Walter Bent, in reply to an article which I have recently published," I said, looking from him to the letter and back again at him in turn, for at the moment I could do nothing else in my surprise.
"In that case I am sorry I spoke," said Bobbie, resuming his breakfast. "Seeing that you appeared as though you could not quite make it out, I thought that it might possibly be for me."
He went on eating calmly, but I confess that I could not.
"Had you any reason to expect a communication from Sir Walter?" I said, after a few minutes' silence.
"I thought that there might be," he replied. "I left some things there the other day, and a letter about them."
I read the note through again, and I felt even less appetite than before.
"Pray what were the things, Bobbie?" I asked, and my voice was intended to convey a kindly interest in his pursuits, not mere curiosity, still less anxiety.
"Oh, some salts," he said, with obviously forced unconcern. "We have been analysing the water here, and I rather imagined that it contained a new element."
If the "celebrated" spring had suddenly discharged itself upon my head, the feeling of cold dismay could scarcely have been more intense. "A new element—in the chalybeate waters here!" I gasped—I am afraid that I must use that expression. "A new element, and you found it, and sent it to Sir Walter Bent, and this is his reply to you! How—how did you do it?"
"Oh, we just analysed it," said the hardened young ruffian, affecting to appear bored. "Being there, of course we found it."
Drowning men, one reads, see their whole past lives in a flash. I was drowning, metaphorically, in the Campton water; certainly I was experiencing most of the actual sensations; and for the next few minutes I enjoyed the mortification of a kaleidoscopic view of my future life if only I had stood in my nephew's shoes. A new element! Not merely undetected before in the Campton spring, but new to science. What might have been! I saw long vistas of platforms, myself enthroned on each; unending crowds of black-coated men eagerly surrounding one central figure—myself; interminable streams of professors in academic robes; countless articles in journals of every imaginable kind, from the airy, snappy, inaccurate "par" of the halfpenny daily to the weighty essay of the quarterly—yes, in those brief seconds I even read some of the opening sentences; flocks of honorary degrees. And now that ever-to-be-execrated treatise in the local sheet—placid, vacuous, self-satisfied, with this on its heels—doomed to involve me in unending ridicule. Why, why, in heaven's name, had not I looked for some imperceptible, elusive, unisolated atom of radioactive matter?
"I suppose that you did not care to tell me of it at the time," I remarked; and upon my word I did not feel that I could justly imply a reproach.
"Yes, I did mention it," replied Bobbie, "but I don't think that you were interested."
He had! I remembered then that a few days before he had spoken diffidently of "something" which he believed he had found in the water. I was preoccupied at the moment, and if I gave the matter a thought it was only to associate the "something" with a lead soldier or an old shilling. I imagine that I told him not to bother me but to run out and play.
Another train of possibilities flashed through my mind. If only I had even then turned a sympathetic ear—an ear at all, in fact—the sequel might have been very different. The investigation would have been transferred to my laboratory; Blithers would have been gradually dispensed with; I could, if necessary, have become Bobbie's assistant; inevitably, after the little joke had been kept up long enough, Bobbie would have seen the propriety, in view of our ages, positions, and my unstinted generosity, of . . . Again the long vistas of platforms, the crowds, the articles. . . .
"How much water did you evaporate?" I asked, coming back to things as they were.
"A thousand gallons, uncle," replied Bobbie. Again history was repeating itself. A thousand gallons! And all with my best Silkstone, I suppose. Evidently another detail of Bobbie's thoughtful self-effacement!
"Mostly in tin kettles," added Bobbie.
Yes! If this new element is to be paraded before the scientific world, let it be known how it was obtained. Evaporated in tin kettles, precipitated in the very crudest manner in faulty test-tubes, sublimated in cracked flasks, fused on discarded charcoal with home-made blow-pipes. Pounded, washed, filtered—a hundred times, a thousand times; painfully, toilsomely, tirelessly.
"What is it?" I asked. I could not walk away in dignity now and ignore the thing; it had got past that. Nor could I now send Bobbie to play in the garden.
"Chloride of x as yet," he replied. "Of course, it may all be a mistake really. You see, I had no spectroscope; that is why I sent to Sir Walter Bent."
"Oh, we can soon settle that," I exclaimed cheerfully. Why should I not identify myself even at the eleventh hour? "Let us go up to the laboratory."
Bobbie did not get up.
"Thank you, uncle," he said politely, "but I would rather not. You see"—he paused a moment, then decided to go on—"you see, a touch, a thoughtless frisk"
He did not finish and I turned to leave the room. I had nothing to say. What was there for me to say? Simply nothing.
"Oh, I am a cad!" cried Bobbie suddenly, before I had reached the door. "Do forgive me, uncle; please do."
"My dear lad" I expostulated, looking back.
"I should like to tell you, uncle, please," he went on, a little wildly for the self-contained youth of the last few weeks. "When father came back from here, a year ago, he told us what a splendid laboratory you had built, and as much as he could remember about the things you had—everything that one could possibly need, he said. I got him to tell me over and over again, and for a year I longed and longed"—"and prayed," I think he said, but his voice went very low—"to be able to come here. I had the most wonderful dreams often of being here and helping you in your work, surrounded by millions and millions of bottles and all illuminated by thousands of bunsen-burners. I thought that perhaps if you found that I could be useful and careful you might let me stay—for a long time, I mean. Well, suddenly I heard that I was to come, and I was wild with it. Then—then, it was quite different, you know. I think it was because I thought more of coming than of Florrie being ill."
There were tears in his eyes—for Florrie I am sure. I have said before that he was the Henry of old again, but as he sat there in the uncertain light, shaken by this most unBobbie-like outburst, by my soul it was the living Mary who faced me. I think I have already declared that I have nothing to conceal throughout. I may be an ass; doubtless I am a middle-aged, solitary ass (which concerns that same cousin Mary), but I certainly did not feel one at the moment. Yet without any consideration of dignity, or any idea of what I should do next, I strode back to the table and kissed Bobbie on the top of the head. There was no need to consider what to do then, for after one single startled glance Bobbie dropped his face upon his arms among the breakfast-things and burst into a veritable storm of sobs.
I went at once. My last impression of the scene was a glimpse of Sir Walter's letter floating off the table on the crest of a noble wave of coffee.
••••••
Sir Walter Bent came the next day and we received him together. I said very little at all, which was doubtless the inspiration for the great man to remark blandly to me during a pause, "I hope, Mr. Troves, that you will excuse our talking 'shop'—'shop,' too, of a kind which I have reason to think is particularly trying to an outsider, but the remarkable interest of your nephew's discovery—" He waved his hand to indicate the rest.
"Oh!" chimed in Bobbie’s clear voice, "my uncle isn't an outsider, sir. He has the most clinking lab. that there ever could be, and we have been there all the morning. If it hadn't been for the things he gave me we shouldn't have been able to do anything. He is the kindest man in the world, really. Except father, of course," he added thoughtfully, and then, in sudden confusion, "and—oh, I beg your pardon—perhaps yourself, sir!"
I was thankful for the mighty roar of laughter from Sir Walter as he disclaimed any chance in the competition. I felt the ass then; but not the middle-aged solitary ass.
••••••
There is a deaf old lady, a Miss Mitterdrop, who lives in the village here. She hears nothing and talks incessantly.
"They tell me," she said, stopping me in the street yesterday, "that you used to make your nephew stand all day in a pit of cold water at the bottom of your garden, and that he found a lot of valuable minerals there." And she peered at me from under her ancient bonnet like an inquisitorial fowl.
"Madam," I replied, as politely as one could, "the only pit at the bottom of my garden is a melon pit."
She looked at me shrewdly and nodded twice.
"Yes, on the Day of Judgment," she said, and hobbled on.
I relate the trifling incident to show what I may expect. Of the fantastic contortion of her next version of the affair and of our conversation, the reader can form as accurate a forecast as I can myself. To set the matter at rest I have therefore thought it well to draw up this plain, unvarnished record.
I am again taking in the Trafalgar Magazine, and each day I look down the front page of the Telegraph before anything else. Relations, I conclude, supply one of the interests in life, and in effect it is immaterial whether the pleasure is obtained by enlarging their shortcomings and envying their success or in sharing the success and ignoring the defects.
Vernon and Gertrude are coming to stay with me at Easter. Bobbie and Florrie wait until the midsummer holidays, because they can then stay longer. I think I have already mentioned that, after Bobbie left, I had the tool-house cleared out and done up. As it stood, the association was not altogether pleasant to me, and I hit upon a splendid idea of turning it into a rabbit-house and stocking it, as a surprise. I am rather afraid that my nephew's enthusiasm will lead him to spend too much time indoors unless I provide counter-attractions.
As I felt my judgment in boys' tastes to be unreliable I wrote to Florrie in confidence and asked her advice. She suggests river picnics, tennis parties, and a motor-car. I shall include these, but I confess that I still have great faith in rabbits.
Hampton Hill, 1904.