Preserve him from tailordom—­from all contact with trade—­they must; otherwise they would be perpetually linked to the horrid thing they hoped to outlive and bury.  A cousin of Mr. Melchisedec’s had risen to be an Admiral and a knight for valiant action in the old war, when men could rise.  Him they besought to take charge of the youth, and make a distinguished seaman of him.  He courteously declined.  They then attacked the married Marine—­Navy or Army being quite indifferent to them as long as they could win for their brother the badge of one Service, ‘When he is a gentleman at once!’ they said, like those who see the end of their labours.  Strike basely pretended to second them.  It would have been delightful to him, of course, to have the tailor’s son messing at the same table, and claiming him when he pleased with a familiar ’Ah, brother!’ and prating of their relationship everywhere.  Strike had been a fool:  in revenge for it he laid out for himself a masterly career of consequent wisdom.  The brewer—­uxorious Andrew Cogglesby—­might and would have bought the commission.  Strike laughed at the idea of giving money for what could be got for nothing.  He told them to wait.

In the meantime Evan, a lad of seventeen, spent the hours not devoted to his positive profession—­that of gentleman—­in the offices of the brewery, toying with big books and balances, which he despised with the combined zeal of the sucking soldier and emancipated tailor.

Two years passed in attendance on the astute brother-in-law, to whom Fortune now beckoned to come to her and gather his laurels from the pig-tails.  About the same time the Countess sailed over from Lisbon on a visit to her sister Harriet (in reality, it was whispered in the Cogglesby saloons, on a diplomatic mission from the Court of Lisbon; but that could not be made ostensible).  The Countess narrowly examined Evan, whose steady advance in his profession both her sisters praised.

‘Yes,’ said the Countess, in a languid alien accent.  ’He has something of his father’s carriage—­something.  Something of his delivery—­his readiness.’

It was a remarkable thing that these ladies thought no man on earth like their father, and always cited him as the example of a perfect gentleman, and yet they buried him with one mind, and each mounted guard over his sepulchre, to secure his ghost from an airing.

’He can walk, my dears, certainly, and talk—­a little.  Tete-a-tete, I do not say.  I should think there he would be—­a stick!  All you English are.  But what sort of a bow has he got, I ask you?  How does he enter a room?  And, then his smile! his laugh!  He laughs like a horse—­ absolutely!  There’s no music in his smile.  Oh! you should see a Portuguese nobleman smile.  O mio Deus! honeyed, my dears!  But Evan has it not.  None of you English have.  You go so.’

The Countess pressed a thumb and finger to the sides of her mouth, and set her sisters laughing.