"And I suppose you have come back empty?" continued his uncle.
George then explained exactly how he stood with regard to money, saying how he had put himself into the hands of Mr. Neversaye Die, how he had taken chambers in the Middle Temple, and how a volume of Blackstone was already lying open in his dingy sitting-room.
"Very well, very well. I have no objection whatever. You will perhaps make nothing at the bar, and certainly never the half what you would have done with Messrs. Dry and Stickatit. But that's your affair. The bar is thoroughly respectable. By-the-by, is your father satisfied with it as a profession?" This was the first allusion that Mr. Bertram had made to his brother.
"Because of course you were bound to consult him." If this was intended for irony, it was so well masked that George was not able to be sure of it.
"I did consult him, sir," said George, turning red in accordance with that inveterate and stupid habit of his.
"That was right. And did you consult him about another thing? did you ask him what you were to live on till such time as you could earn your own bread?"
In answer to this, George was obliged to own that he did not. "There was no necessity," said he, "for he knows that I have my fellowship."
"Oh! ah! yes; and that of course relieves him of any further cause for anxiety in the matter. I forgot that."
"Uncle George, you are always very hard on my father; much too hard."
"I think you are. As regards his duty to me, if I do not complain, you need not."
"Oh! that is it, is it? I did think that up to this, his remissness in doing his duty as a father had fallen rather on my shoulders than on yours. But I suppose I have been mistaken; eh?"
"At any rate, if you have to complain, your complaint should be made to him, not to me."
"But you see I have not time to run across the world to Jerusalem; and were I to do so, the chances are ten to one I should not catch him. If you will ask Pritchett too, you will find that your father is not the best correspondent in the world. Perhaps he has sent back by you some answer to Pritchett's half-yearly letters?"
"I'll warrant he has not. But come, George, own the truth. Did he borrow money from you when he saw you? If he did not, he showed a very low opinion of your finances and my liberality."