Nevertheless, though his feelings were not “demonstrative,” as fine ladies say now-a-days, he evidently had some left in some corner of his heart; for after the fatted calf was eaten, and they were all settled in the Doctor’s study, it came out that his carpet-bag contained little but presents, and those valuable ones—­rare minerals from the Ural for his father; a pair of Circassian pistols for Mark; and for little Mary, to her astonishment, a Russian malachite bracelet, at which Mary’s eyes opened wide, and old Mark said—­

“Pretty fellow you are, to go fooling your money away like that.  What did that gimcrack cost, pray, sir?”

“That is no concern of yours, sir, or mine either; for I didn’t pay for it.”

“Oh!” said Mary, doubtingly.

“No, Mary.  I killed a giant, who was carrying off a beautiful princess; and this, you see, he wore as a ring on one of his fingers:  so I thought it would just suit your wrist.”

“Oh, Tom—­Mr. Thurnall—­what nonsense!”

“Come, come,” said his father:  “instead of telling us these sort of stories, you ought to give an account of yourself, as you seem quite to forget that we have not heard from you for more than two years.”

“Whew!  I wrote,” said Tom, “whenever I could.  However, you can have all my letters in one now.”

So they sat round the fire, and Tom gave an account of himself; while his father marked with pride that the young man had grown and strengthened in body and in mind; and that under that nonchalant, almost cynical outside, the heart still beat honest and kindly.  For before Tom began, he would needs draw his chair closer to his father’s, and half-whispered to him,—­

“This is very jolly.  I can’t be sentimental, you know.  Knocking about the world has beat all that out of me:  but it is very comfortable, after all, to find oneself with a dear old daddy and a good coal fire.”

“Which of the two could you best do without?”

“Well, one takes things as one finds them.  It don’t do to look too deeply into one’s feelings.  Like chemicals, the more you analyse them, the worse they smell.”

So Tom began his story.

“You heard from me at Bombay; after I’d been up to the Himalaya with an old Mumpsimus friend?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I worked my way to Suez on board a ship whose doctor had fallen ill; and then I must needs see a little of Egypt; and there robbed was I, and nearly murdered, too; but I take a good deal of killing.”

“I’ll warrant you do,” said Mark, looking at him with pride.

“So I begged my way to Cairo; and there I picked up a Yankee—­a New Yorker, made of money, who had a yacht at Alexandria, and travelled en prince; and nothing would serve him but I must go with him to Constantinople; but there he and I quarrelled—­more fools, both of us!  I wrote to you from Constantinople.”

“We never got the letter.”