I was incredulous.
"But he's only got his niece, Margery, and his butler, and his cook! The cook's awfully good to him. Makes his favorite pudding any day he wants it."
"Ay, but he's got me too," said Harry solemnly, "or, at least, he should have me. We're at the outs."
"Well, then, all you have to do is to make friends, isn't it?"
"Not so simple as it sounds," replied Harry gloomily.
"I have been a bad son to him." He rose abruptly and began walking up and down the room. I got to my feet too, and strode beside him, hands deep in pockets. I longed for a short thick pipe.
"I never did what he wanted me to," pursued Harry. "He wanted me to stick at college and make something of myself, but all I cared to do was to knock about with chaps who weren't good for me, and I simply wouldn't study. So we had words. Hot ones too. I left home with a little money my mother had left me. I was twenty-one then—five years ago." He looked down in my face with his sudden smile. "You're a rum little toad," he said. "I like to talk to you, John."
I thought: "When I'm a man I'll have a pipe like that, and hold it in my teeth when I talk."
[167]
