“Really, sir,” said Richard, “I don’t think it would be honourable in me to tell you.  Mr. Skimpole relied upon us—­”

“Lord bless you, my dear boy!  He relies upon everybody!” said Mr. Jarndyce, giving his head a great rub and stopping short.

“Indeed, sir?”

“Everybody!  And he’ll be in the same scrape again next week!” said Mr. Jarndyce, walking again at a great pace, with a candle in his hand that had gone out.  “He’s always in the same scrape.  He was born in the same scrape.  I verily believe that the announcement in the newspapers when his mother was confined was ’On Tuesday last, at her residence in Botheration Buildings, Mrs. Skimpole of a son in difficulties.’”

Richard laughed heartily but added, “Still, sir, I don’t want to shake his confidence or to break his confidence, and if I submit to your better knowledge again, that I ought to keep his secret, I hope you will consider before you press me any more.  Of course, if you do press me, sir, I shall know I am wrong and will tell you.”

“Well!” cried Mr. Jarndyce, stopping again, and making several absent endeavours to put his candlestick in his pocket.  “I—­here!  Take it away, my dear.  I don’t know what I am about with it; it’s all the wind—­invariably has that effect—­I won’t press you, Rick; you may be right.  But really—­to get hold of you and Esther—­and to squeeze you like a couple of tender young Saint Michael’s oranges!  It’ll blow a gale in the course of the night!”

He was now alternately putting his hands into his pockets as if he were going to keep them there a long time, and taking them out again and vehemently rubbing them all over his head.

I ventured to take this opportunity of hinting that Mr. Skimpole, being in all such matters quite a child—­

“Eh, my dear?” said Mr. Jarndyce, catching at the word.

“Being quite a child, sir,” said I, “and so different from other people—­”

“You are right!” said Mr. Jarndyce, brightening.  “Your woman’s wit hits the mark.  He is a child—­an absolute child.  I told you he was a child, you know, when I first mentioned him.”

Certainly!  Certainly! we said.

“And he is a child.  Now, isn’t he?” asked Mr. Jarndyce, brightening more and more.

He was indeed, we said.

“When you come to think of it, it’s the height of childishness in you—­I mean me—­” said Mr. Jarndyce, “to regard him for a moment as a man.  You can’t make him responsible.  The idea of Harold Skimpole with designs or plans, or knowledge of consequences!  Ha, ha, ha!”

It was so delicious to see the clouds about his bright face clearing, and to see him so heartily pleased, and to know, as it was impossible not to know, that the source of his pleasure was the goodness which was tortured by condemning, or mistrusting, or secretly accusing any one, that I saw the tears in Ada’s eyes, while she echoed his laugh, and felt them in my own.