Naturally this visit to Switzerland cemented our intimacy, and it was on our return home that he suggested my accompanying him on one of his 'rubbing expeditions.'
'Henry,' he said, 'your mother has of late frequently discussed with me the question of your future calling in life. She suggests a Parliamentary career. I confess that I find questions about careers exceedingly disturbing.'
'There is only one profession I should like, father,' I said, 'and that is a painter's.' In fact, the passion for painting had come on me very strongly of late. My dreams had from the first been of wandering with Winnie in a paradise of colour, and these dreams had of late been more frequent: the paradise of colour had been growing richer and rarer.
He shook his head gravely and said, 'No, my dear; your mother would never allow it.'
'Why not?' I said; 'is painting low too?'
'Cyril Aylwin is low, at least so your mother and aunt say, especially your aunt. I have not perceived it myself, but then your mother's perceptive faculties are extraordinary--quite extraordinary.'
'Did the lowness come from his being a painter, father?' I asked.
'Really, child, you are puzzling me. But I have observed you now for some weeks, and I quite believe that you would make one of the best rubbers who ever held a ball. I am going to Salisbury next week, and you shall then make your _début_.'
This was in the midst of a very severe winter we had some years ago, when all Europe was under a coating of ice.
'But, father,' I said, 'shan't we find it rather cold?'
'Well,' said my father, with a bland smile, 'I will not pretend that Salisbury Cathedral is particularly warm in this weather, but in winter I always rub in knee-caps and mittens. I will tell Hodder to knit you a full set at once.'
'But, father,' I said, 'Tom Wynne tells me that rubbing is the most painful of all occupations. He even goes so far sometimes as to say that it was the exhaustion of rubbing for you which turned him to drink.'
'Nothing of the kind,' said my father. 'All that Tom needed to make him a good rubber was enthusiasm. I am strongly of opinion that without enthusiasm rubbing is of all occupations the most irksome, except perhaps for the quadrumana (who seem more adapted for this exercise), the most painful for the spine, the most cramping for the thighs, the most numbing for the fingers. It is a profession, Henry, demanding, above every other, enthusiasm in the operator. Now Tom's enthusiasm for rubbing as an art was from the first exceedingly feeble.'