‘Didn’t want to, I s’pose.’

‘Has he stayed at home often lately?’

’Not at ‘ome, but I expect he doesn’t always go to work.’

’Will you go and sit with Alice in the front room?  I’ll have a talk with him.’

’Arry came whistling at the summons.  There was a nasty look on his face, the look which in his character corresponded to Richard’s resoluteness.  His brother eyed him.

’Look here, ‘Arry,’ the elder began, ’I want this explaining.  What do you mean by shirking your work?’

There was no reply.  ’Arry strode to the window and leaned against the side of it, in the attitude of a Sunday loafer waiting for the dram-shop to open.

‘If this goes on,’ Richard pursued, ’you’ll find yourself in your old position again.  I’ve gone to a good deal of trouble to give you a start, and it seems to me you ought to show a better spirit.  We’d better have an understanding; do you mean to learn engineering, or don’t you?’

‘I don’t see the use of it,’ said the other.

‘What do you mean?  I suppose you must make your living somehow?’

’Arry laughed, and in such a way that Richard looked at him keenly, his brow gathering darkness.

‘What are you laughing at?’

’Why, at you.  There’s no more need for me to work for a living than there is for you.  As if I didn’t know that!’

‘Who’s been putting that into your head?’

No scruple prevented the lad from breaking a promise he had made to Mr. Keene, the journalist, when the latter explained to him the disposition of the deceased Richard Mutimer’s estate; it was only that he preferred to get himself credit for acuteness.

’Why, you don’t think I was to be kept in the dark about a thing like that?  It’s just like you to want to make a fellow sweat the flesh off his bones when all the time there’s a fortune waiting for him.  What have I got to work for, I’d like to know?  I don’t just see the fun of it, and you wouldn’t neither, in my case.  You’ve took jolly good care you don’t work yourself, trust you!  I ain’t a-going to work no more, so there it is, plain and flat.’

Richard was not prepared for this; he could not hit at once on a new course of procedure, and probably it was the uncertainty revealed in his countenance that brought ’Arry to a pitch of boldness not altogether premeditated.  The lad came from the window, thrust his hands more firmly into his pockets and stood prepared to do battle for his freeman’s rights It is not every day that a youth of his stamp finds himself gloriously capable of renouncing work.  There was something like a glow of conscious virtue on his face.

‘You’re not going to work any more, eh?’ said his brother, half to himself.  ‘And who’s going to support you?’ he asked, with rather forced indignation.

‘There’s interest per cent. coming out of my money.’

’Arry must not be credited with conscious accuracy in his use of terms; he merely jumbled together two words which had stuck in his memory.