“We’ll dine without you, that’s all!” said the old man; while, taking his daughter’s hand, he led her out of the room.
“I say, Bob, I’d not change with you, even for the difference,” said Calvert.
“I never saw him so bad before,” said the other, sheepishly.
“Because you never tried him! Hitherto you have been a spaniel, getting kicked and cuffed, and rather liking it; but, now that the sight of an old friend has rallied you to a faint semblance of your former self, you are shocked and horrified. You made a bad start, Bob; that was the mistake. You ought to have begun by making him feel the immeasurable distance there lay between him and a gentleman; not only in dress, language, and behaviour, but in every sentiment and feeling. Having done this, he would have tacitly submitted to ways that were not his own, by conceding that they might be those of a class he had never belonged to. You might, in short, have ruled him quietly and constitutionally. Now you have nothing for it but one thing.”
“A revolution! Yes, you must overthrow the whole government, and build up another out of the smash. Begin to-day. We’ll dine together wherever you like. We’ll go to the Scala if it’s open. We’ll sup--”
“She’ll stand by her husband. Though, probably, she’ll have you ‘up’ for a little private discipline afterwards. Come, don’t lose time. I want to do my cathedral, and my gallery, and my other curiosities in one day, for I have some matters to settle at Orto before I start for Basle. Have they a club, a casino, or anything of the sort here, where they play?”
“There is a place they call the Gettone, but I’ve never been there but once.”
“Well, we’ll finish there this evening; for I want to win a little money, to pay my journey.”
“No, no. Not to be thought of. I’ve got some fifty Naps by me--tame elephants--that are sure to entrap others. You must come with me to Basle, Bob. You can’t desert me in such a crisis,” said Calvert, as they left the inn together.
“We’ll see. I’ll think over it. The difficulty will be--”
“The impossibility is worse than a difficulty; and that is what I shall have to face if you abandon me. Why, only think of it for a moment Here I am, jilted, out of the army--for I know I shall lose my commission--without a guinea; you’d not surely wish me to say, without a friend! If it were not that it would be so selfish, I’d say the step will be the making of you. You’ll have that old bear so civilised on your return, you’ll not know him.”