The Broad Highway | Page 4

said I.
Sir Richard sank into the nearest chair and stared at me openmouthed.
"Sir," I continued, "you doubtless set me down as an egoist of egoists. I
freely confess it; so are you, so is Mr. Grainger yonder, so are we all of
us egoists in thinking ourselves as good as some few of our neighbors
and better than a great many."
"Deuce take me!" said Sir Richard.
"Referring to the Lady Sophia, I have heard that she once galloped her
horse up the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral--"
"And down again, Peter," added Sir Richard.
"Also she is said to be possessed of a temper," I continued, "and is
above the average height, I believe, and I have a natural antipathy to
termagants, more especially tall ones."
"Termagant!" cried Sir Richard. "Why, she's the handsomest woman in
London, boy. She's none of your milk-and-watery, meek-mouthed
misses--curse me, no! She's all fire and blood and high mettle--a
woman, sir glorious--divine--damme, sir, a black-browed goddess--a
positive plum!"
"Sir Richard," said I, "should I ever contemplate marriage, which is
most improbable, my wife must be sweet and shy, gentle-eyed and soft
of voice, instead of your bold, strong-armed, horse-galloping creature;
above all, she must be sweet and clinging--"
"Sweet and sticky, oh, the devil! Hark to the boy, Grainger," cried Sir

Richard, "hark to him--and one glance of the glorious Sefton's bright
eyes--one glance only, Grainger, and he'd be at her feet--on his
knees--on his confounded knees, sir!"
"The question is, how do you propose to maintain yourself in the
future?" said Mr. Grainger at this point; "life under your altered
fortunes must prove necessarily hard, Mr. Peter."
"And yet, sir," I answered, "a fortune with a wife tagged on to it must
prove a very mixed blessing after all; and then again, there may be a
certain amount of satisfaction in stepping into a dead man's shoes, but I,
very foolishly, perhaps, have a hankering for shoes of my own. Surely
there must be some position in life that I am competent to fill, some
position that would maintain me honorably and well; I flatter myself
that my years at Oxford were not altogether barren of result--"
"By no means," put in Sir Richard; "you won the High Jump, I
believe?"
"Sir, I did," said I; "also 'Throwing the Hammer.'"
"And spent two thousand pounds per annum?" said Sir Richard.
"Sir, I did, but between whiles managed to do fairly well in the Tripos,
to finish a new and original translation of Quintilian, another of
Petronius Arbiter and also a literal rendering into the English of the
Memoirs of the Sieur de Brantome."
"For none of which you have hitherto found a publisher?" inquired Mr.
Grainger.
"Not as yet," said I, "but I have great hopes of my Brantome, as you are
probably aware this is the first time he has ever been translated into the
English."
"Hum!" said Sir Richard, "ha!--and in the meantime what do you intend
to do?"

"On that head I have as yet come to no definite conclusion, sir," I
answered.
"I have been wondering," began Mr. Grainger, somewhat diffidently,
"if you would care to accept a position in my office. To be sure the
remuneration would be small at first and quite insignificant in
comparison to the income you have been in the receipt of."
"But it would have been money earned," said I, "which is infinitely
preferable to that for which we never turn a hand--at least, I think so."
"Then you accept?"
"No, sir," said I, "though I am grateful to you, and thank you most
sincerely for your offer, yet I have never felt the least inclination to the
practice of law; where there is no interest one's work must necessarily
suffer, and I have no desire that your business should be injured by any
carelessness of mine."
"What do you think of a private tutorship?"
"It would suit me above all things were it not for the fact that the genus
'Boy' is the most aggravating of all animals, and that I am conscious of
a certain shortness of temper at times, which might result in pain to my
pupil, loss of dignity to myself, and general unpleasantness to all
concerned--otherwise a private tutorship would suit most admirably."
Here Sir Richard took another pinch of snuff and sat frowning up at the
ceiling, while Mr. Grainger began tying up that document which had so
altered my prospects. As for me, I crossed to the window and stood
staring out at the evening. Everywhere were trees tinted by the rosy
glow of sunset, trees that stirred sleepily in the gentle wind, and far
away I could see that famous highway, built and paved for the march of
Roman Legions, winding away to where