"No, no; I had sooner remain in Dublin, and get the thing off my mind at once. The day after to-morrow, then, at this time."

"It will be all ready by then."

As he pa.s.sed through the outer office, the head clerk came from his desk, smiling and bowing obsequiously. He was a young man of dark complexion, and black hair, worn rather long.

"Ah, Daireh, how do you do?" said Mr Burke with a nod, but not offering to shake hands, as the other evidently expected.

Daireh was an Egyptian _protege_ of Mr Forsyth, who had employed him as a boy-clerk, brought him to England with him, and placed him in a lawyer's office. He was clever, sharp, and a most useful servant; and, entering the employ of Messrs Burrows and f.a.gan, had ingratiated himself with both of them, so that he was trusted to an extraordinary degree.

He professed great grat.i.tude to Mr Burke, as the brother-in-law of his benefactor, and as having spoken for him when he was seeking his present engagement. But Mr Burke did not like the look of him. He was prejudiced, however, against all foreigners, especially Greeks and Egyptians, so that his dislike did not go for much. But certainly an acute physiognomist would have said that Daireh looked sly.

Mr Burke had friends to call on, and business to transact, so the delay did not really matter to him; and he called at the lawyer's office again at the appointed time, Daireh, bowing obsequiously as usual, ushering him into Mr Burrows' private room.

"Well, we have put your good English into what you profanely call legal jargon," said that gentleman.

"Just listen, and try to understand your own directions while I read them over."

It was all plain enough, and short enough, in spite of Mr Burrows'

little joke, and then Mr Burke put his mouth to a speaking-tube, and called Daireh to come and witness the doc.u.ment. Then there was some signing, and the new will was consigned to the tin box bearing the name of Richard Burke, Esquire, upon it.

"Better destroy the old one," said he.

"Certainly," replied Mr Burrows. "Throw it behind the fire, Daireh."

Then Daireh did a curious thing. He took another parchment, exactly like the old will, out of his breast coat pocket, and managed, unperceived, to exchange it for the doc.u.ment; so that the object which Mr Burke and the lawyer watched curling, blazing, sputtering, till it was consumed, was not the old will at all, but a spoilt skin of some other matter, and the old will was lying snugly in Daireh's pocket.

What motive could he have? What earthly use could this old will be, when one of more recent date lay in that tin box? Daireh could not have answered the question. He kept it on the off-chance of being able to make something out of it. He was a thorough rogue, though not found out yet, and he knew that Stephen Philipson, who had just been disinherited, was both rogue and fool.

So he carried off the now valueless doc.u.ment, which would not eat or drink, he reckoned, and might be put to some purpose some day.

Mr Burke returned home and wrote to his sister, and to Stephen Philipson, telling them what he had done. He did not write about it to Reginald Kavanagh, not thinking it necessary to take from him any inducement to exert himself, for though he was a good-enough lad in most respects, he certainly was not studious. He was also accused by his schoolfellows of what they called "putting on a good deal of swagger," a weakness not likely to be improved by the knowledge of his G.o.dfather's kind intentions towards him.

So that altogether Mr Richard Burke was, perhaps, judicious.

CHAPTER THREE.

FROM GAY TO GRAVE.

Tea was a comfortable meal at Harton in the winter half of the year, when the boys had fires in their rooms, at least, for social fellows who clubbed together. Not but what it is cosy to linger over the meal with a book in your hand, or propped up, as you sit alone at the corner of the table, half turned to the hearth.

But Forsyth, Strachan, and Kavanagh liked to mess together, and Strachan's room being the largest of the three, they selected that to have their breakfast and tea in. All their cups, saucers, and so on, were kept in a cupboard in that room, but toasting or such other light cookery as their f.a.gs performed for them was done in their respective apartments, for the avoidance of overcrowding and dispute amongst the operators. Also, when bloaters, sprats, or sausages were in question, it was well not to feed in the room in which the smell of preparation was most powerful.

Though the half was drawing to its close, the evening board was bountifully spread; for Forsyth's birthday had come off two days before, and brought with it a token from home--a wicker token which the Lord Mayor himself would not have despised. There was a ham, succulent and tender; a tongue, fresh, not tinned, boiled, not stewed, of most eloquent silence; a packet of sausages, a jar of marmalade, and, most delicious of all, some potted shrimps. Harry knew, but did not tell, that every one of those shrimps had been stripped of its sh.e.l.l by the hands of Trix, who plumed herself, with unquestionable justice, upon her shrimp-potting. Unfathomable is the depth of female devotion; fancy any one being able to skin a shrimp, prawn, or walnut, and not eat it! The shrimps, the sausages, were gone, the tongue was silent for ever, but the ham and the marmalade remained.

The three friends were the oldest boys in the house, and almost in the school. Two of them, Strachan and Kavanagh, were to leave at the end of the half, and Forsyth was to do so after the next.

"Where's Kavanagh?" said the latter, coming into the room and sitting down by the fire.

"At his tutor's," said Strachan; "he is bound to be in directly. Let the tea brew a bit longer."

"It's uncommonly cold this evening; going to snow, I think. I hate snow in February; there is no chance of real frost for skating, and it spoils the football. Oh, here's Kavanagh."

The youth named strolled deliberately in at the moment, sat down at the table, and began to shave off a slice of ham.

"Has the cold wind made you hungry, or has the effort to understand that chorus in Euripides exhausted you?"

"I never try to understand what I firmly believe to have no meaning whatever," drawled Kavanagh; "and I am never hungry. I consider it bad form to be hungry; it shows that a fellow does not eat often enough.

Now the distinguishing mark of a gentleman is that he has too many meals a day ever to feel hungry."

"I see; then you are only carving the ham for us."

"That does not exactly follow. Never jump to conclusions. A fire may not actually require coals, yet you may put some on to keep it going; so it is with a gentleman's stomach. You may take ham to appease hunger, or you may take it to prevent the obtrusion of that vulgar sensation.

Not that I object to helping you fellows. The carving of ham is an art, a fourpenny piece representing the maximum of thickness which the lean should obtain. With a carving-knife and fork this ideal is not too easy of attainment, but with these small blunt tools it requires a first-rate workman to approach it. Now this slice, which I sacrifice on the altar of friendship, is, I regret to say, fully as thick as a shilling."

At this moment a little boy, Kavanagh's f.a.g, came into the room bearing a m.u.f.fin on a toasting-fork.

"Devereux!" said Kavanagh, severely, "do you know what Louis the Fourteenth of France said when his carriage drew up, as he stepped outside his front door?"

"No."

"He said, 'I almost had to wait!' Now I, too, say to you that my tea is poured out, my ham cut, and I almost had to wait. Not quite, happily not quite, or the consequences to you would have been--terrible!"

The little boy did not look very frightened, in spite of the tone in which the last word was uttered. Kavanagh had never been known wilfully to hurt anything weaker than himself in his life. As he was tall and strong, this is saying a great deal.

The two other f.a.gs grinned; one of them filled up the tea-pot, and then Strachan said "Go!" and all three lower boys vanished in a twinkling to prepare their own teas.

"We shall not have many more teas together," said Forsyth.

"No, but we may dinners," replied Strachan.

"Suppose we all get into the same regiment."

"The job is to get into any regiment at all," said Kavanagh. "There is that abominable examination to be got over. Awfully clever and hard reading fellows get beaten in it every time, I can tell you."

"Well, but I believe it is easier through the Militia than direct into Sandhurst, is it not? And that is the way you and I are going to try.

At any rate, then we can go into the same Militia regiment, and that will give us two trainings, besides preliminary drills, and so forth, to have some fun together. And Forsyth must come in too."

"I have not quite made up my mind to go into the army, or rather to try for it, at all yet," said Forsyth. "It seems such a waste of time to sap for it, and then be sold after all. I can never do half so well as I fairly ought in an examination, because I take so long to remember things I know quite well, even if I have plenty of time to think them out. I can learn, but I can't cram, so I fear I should never be in it."

"Oh, have a shy, man; it is only going in for something else if you fail. And there is no life like the army if you succeed."

"If we fail, we fail. 'But screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we'll not fail,'" quoted Kavanagh.

"Well, it is very tempting; perhaps I shall try," said Forsyth.

"Look here, then," said Strachan, "there are two vacancies amongst the sub-lieutenants in the fourth battalion of the Blankshire, and my father is a friend of the Colonel. I am to have one, and I have no doubt you, Kavanagh, will get the other. There is almost sure to be another vacancy before the next training, and if there is, don't you think your friends would let you leave Harton at once, and take it? Then you could serve one training this year, and another next year, and be ready to go in for the Compet.i.tive at the same time that we do."

"Thanks, old fellow," said Forsyth. "I will talk it over with my people when I go home at Easter, and will let you know as quickly as I can."