for a twelvemonth in cool blood.  Consequences!  I hate consequences; they’ve always been against me; they have.  I’m so tied up I can’t cut down a stick more, and that’s a “consequence” of having the property so deucedly well settled; I wish I’d never had any ancestors.  Ay, laugh, lad! it does me good to see thee laugh a bit, after Osborne’s long face, which always grows longer at sight o’ me!’

‘Look here, father!’ said Roger suddenly, ’I’ll manage somehow about the money for the works.  You trust to me; give me two months to turn myself in, and you shall have some money, at any rate, to begin with.’

The squire looked at him, and his face brightened as a child’s does at the promise of a pleasure made to him by some one on whom he can rely.  He became a little graver, however, as he said,—­’But how will you get it?  It’s hard enough work.’

’Never mind; I’ll get it—­a hundred or so at first—­I don’t yet know how—­but remember, father, I’m a Senior Wrangler, and a “very promising young writer,” as that review called me.  Oh, you don’t know what a fine fellow you’ve got for a son.  You should have read that review to know all my wonderful merits.’

’I did, Roger.  I heard Gibson speaking of it, and I made him get it for me.  I should have understood it better if they could have called the animals by their English names, and not put so much of their French jingo into it.’

‘But it was an answer to an article by a French writer,’ pleaded Roger.

‘I’d ha’ let him alone!’ said the squire earnestly.  ’We had to beat ’em, and we did it at Waterloo; but I’d not demean myself by answering any of their lies, if I was you.  But I got through the review, for all their Latin and French; I did, and if you doubt me, you just look at the end of the great ledger, turn it upside down, and you’ll find I’ve copied out all the fine words they said of you:  “careful observer,” “strong nervous English,” “rising philosopher.”  Oh!  I can nearly say it all off by heart, for many a time when I am frabbed by bad debts, or Osborne’s bills, or moidered with accounts, I turn the ledger wrong way up, and smoke a pipe over it, while I read those pieces out of the review which speak about you, lad!’

CHAPTER XXXII

COMING EVENTS

Roger had turned over many plans in his mind, by which he thought that he could obtain sufficient money for the purpose he desired to accomplish.  His careful grandfather, who had been a merchant in the city, had so tied up the few thousands he had left to his daughter, that although, in case of her death before her husband’s, the latter might enjoy the life interest thereof, yet in case of both their deaths, their second son did not succeed to the property until he was five-and-twenty, and if he died before that age the money that would then have been his went to one of his cousins on the maternal side.  In short,