‘What the devil are you doing here?’ said
Dobbs Broughton to his friend the artist. ’You’re
always here. You’re here a doosed sight
more than I like.’ Husbands when they have
been drinking are very apt to make mistakes as to
the purport of the game.
‘Why Dobbs,’ said the painter, ‘there’s
something wrong with you.’
’No, there ain’t. There’s
nothing wrong; and if there was, what’s that
to you? I shan’t ask you to pay anything
for me, I suppose?’
‘Well;—I hope not.’
’I won’t have you here, and let that be
an end of it. It’s all very well when
I choose to have a few friends to dinner, but my wife
can do very well without your fal-lalling here all
day. Will you remember that, if you please?’
Conway Dalrymple, knowing that he had better not argue
any question with a drunken man, took himself out
of the house, shrugging his shoulders as he thought
of the misery of which his poor dear playfellow would
now be called on to endure.
A HERO AT HOME
On the morning after his visit to Miss Demolines,
John Eames found himself at the Paddington Station
asking for a ticket for Guestwick, and as he picked
up his change another gentleman also demanded a ticket
for the same place. Had Guestwick been as Liverpool
or Manchester, Eames would have thought nothing about
it. It is a matter of course that men should
always be going from London to Liverpool and Manchester;
but it seemed odd to him that two men should want
first-class tickets for so small a place as Guestwick
at the same moment. And when, afterwards, he
was placed by the guard in the same carriage with this
other traveller, he could not but feel some little
curiosity. The man was four or five years Johnny’s
senior, a good-looking fellow, with a pleasant face,
and the outward appurtenances of a gentleman.
The intelligent reader will no doubt be aware that
the stranger was Major Grantly; but the intelligent
reader has in this respect had much advantage over
John Eames, who up to this time had never even heard
of his cousin Grace Crawley’s lover. ’I
think you were asking for a ticket to Guestwick,’
said Johnny; —whereupon the major owned
that such was the case. ’I lived in Guestwick
for the greater part of my life,’ said Johnny,
’and it’s the dullest, dearest little
town in all England.’ ’I never was
there before,’ said the major, ’and indeed
I can hardly say I am going there now. I shall
only pass through it.’ Then he got out his
newspaper, and Johnny also got his out, and for a
time there was no conversation between them.
John remembered how holy was the errand upon which
he was intent, and gathered his thoughts together,
resolving that having so great a matter on his mind
he would think about nothing else and speak about
nothing at all. He was going down to Allington
to ask Lily Dale for the last time whether she would
be his wife; to ascertain whether he was to be successful
