John was smoking a cigar in an arbour near the house when his heir unfolded to him these plans for retrenchment.  He was surprised.  The boy was so big, so clever with his lessons, and possessed so keen a sense of humour that sometimes the father forgot his actual age, and forgot that he was still simple in many respects, and more childlike than some other youths.

He did not instantly answer nor laugh (for Johnnie was exceedingly sensitive to ridicule from him); but after a pause, as if for thought, he assured his son that he was not in any want of money, and that therefore these plans, he was happy to say, were not necessary.  “As you are old enough now,” he added, “to take an intelligent interest in my affairs, I shall occasionally talk to you about them.”

Johnnie, shoving his head hard against his father’s shoulder, gave him an awkward hug.  “You might depend on my never telling anybody,” he said.

“I am sure of that, my boy.  Your dear grandfather, a few months before his death, gave his name to an enterprise which, in my opinion, did not promise well.  A good deal of money has been lost by it.”

“Oh,” said Johnnie, and again he reflected that, though not necessary, it would be only right and noble in him to give up his pony.

“But I dare say you think that I and mine have always lived in the enjoyment of every comfort, and of some luxuries.”

“Oh, yes, father.”

“Then if I tell you that I intend to continue living exactly in my present style, and that I expect to be always entitled to do so, you need perhaps hardly concern yourself to inquire how much I may hitherto have lived within my income.”

Johnnie, who, quite unknown to himself, had just sustained the loss of many thousands hitherto placed to his name, replied with supreme indifference that he hoped he was not such a muff as to care about money that his father did not care about himself, and did not want.  Whereupon John proceeded,—­

“It is my wish, and in the course of a few years I hope that I shall be able, to retire.”

“Oh,” said Johnnie again, and he surprised his father to the point of making him refrain from any further communication, by adding, “And then you’ll have plenty of time to rummage among those old Turanian verbs and things.  But, father?”

“Yes, my boy.”

John looked down into the clear eyes of the great, awkward, swarthy fellow, expecting the question, “Will this make much difference to my future prospects?” But, no, what he said was, “I should like to have a go at them too.  And you said you would teach me Sanscrit, if ever you had leisure.”

“So I did,” said John, “and so I will.”

To his own mind these buried roots, counted by the world so dry, proved, as it were, appetising and attractive food.  How, then, should he be otherwise than pleased that his son should take delight in the thought of helping him to rake them up, and arguing with him over “the ninth meaning of a particle?” “The boy will learn to love money quite soon enough,” he thought.