“You sold your nuggets for rather less than a twentieth part of their value, and you threw in some curiosities, that would have fetched about half as much as you got for the nuggets.  You say you did this because you wanted money to keep you going till you could sell some of your nuggets.  This sounds well at first, but the sacrifice is too great to be plausible when considered.  It looks more like a case of good honest manly straightforward corruption.”

“But surely you believe me?”

“Of course I do.  I believe every syllable that comes from your mouth, but I shall not be able to make out that the story was as it was not, unless I am quite certain what it really was.”

“It was exactly as I have told you.”

“That is enough.  And now, may I tell my mother that you will put yourself in her, and the Mayor’s, and my, hands, and will do whatever we tell you?”

“I will be obedience itself—­but you will not ask me to do anything that will make your mother or you think less well of me?”

“If we tell you what you are to do, we shall not think any the worse of you for doing it.  Then I may say to my mother that you will be good and give no trouble—­not even though we bid you shake hands with Hanky and Panky?”

“I will embrace them and kiss them on both cheeks, if you and she tell me to do so.  But what about the Mayor?”

“He has known everything, and condoned everything, these last twenty years.  He will leave everything to my mother and me.”

“Shall I have to see him?”

“Certainly.  You must be brought up before him to-morrow morning.”

“How can I look him in the face?”

“As you would me, or any one else.  It is understood among us that nothing happened.  Things may have looked as though they had happened, but they did not happen.”

“And you are not yet quite twenty?”

“No, but I am son to my mother—­and,” he added, “to one who can stretch a point or two in the way of honesty as well as other people.”

Having said this with a laugh, he again took my father’s hand between both his, and went back to his office—­where he set himself to think out the course he intended to take when dealing with the Professors.

CHAPTER XVIII:  YRAM INVITES DR. DOWNIE AND MRS. HUMDRUM TO LUNCHEON—­A PASSAGE AT ARMS BETWEEN HER AND HANKY IS AMICABLY ARRANGED

The disturbance caused by my father’s outbreak was quickly suppressed, for George got him out of the temple almost immediately; it was bruited about, however, that the Sunchild had come down from the palace of the sun, but had disappeared as soon as any one had tried to touch him.  In vain did Hanky try to put fresh life into his sermon; its back had been broken, and large numbers left the church to see what they could hear outside, or failing information, to discourse more freely with one another.