Ajax was a source of pride to me.  However, I heard Temple murmur, in a tone totally unlike himself, ‘He would be a great protection to you’; and I said to him, ’You know, Temple, I shall be going to London to-morrow or the next day, not later:  I don’t know when I shall be back.  I wish you would dispose of the dog just as you like:  get him a kind master or mistress, that’s all.’

I sacrificed my dog to bring Temple to his senses.  I thought it would touch him to see how much I could sacrifice just to get an excuse for begging him to start.  He did not even thank me.  Ajax soon wore one of Janet’s collars, like two or three other of the Riversley dogs, and I had the satisfaction of hearing Temple accept my grandfather’s invitation for a further fortnight.  And, meanwhile, I was the one who was charged with going about looking lovelorn!  I smothered my feelings and my reflections on the wisdom of people.

At last my aunt Dorothy found the means of setting me at liberty on the road to London.  We had related to her how Captain Bulsted toasted Julia Rippenger, and we had both declared in joke that we were sure the captain wished to be introduced to her.  My aunt reserved her ideas on the subject, but by-and-by she proposed to us to ride over to Julia, and engage her to come and stay at Riversley for some days.  Kissing me, my aunt said, ‘She was my Harry’s friend when he was an outcast.’

The words revived my affection for Julia.  Strong in the sacred sense of gratitude, I turned on Temple, reproaching him with selfish forgetfulness of her good heart and pretty face.  Without defending himself, as he might have done, he entreated me to postpone our journey for a day; he and Janet had some appointment.  Here was given me a noble cause and matter I need not shrink from speaking of.  I lashed Temple in my aunt’s presence with a rod of real eloquence that astonished her, and him, and myself too; and as he had a sense of guilt not quite explicable in his mind, he consented to bear what was in reality my burden; for Julia had distinguished me and not him with all the signs of affection, and of the two I had the more thoroughly forgotten her; I believe Temple was first in toasting her at Squire Gregory’s table.  There is nothing like a pent-up secret of the heart for accumulating powers of speech; I mean in youth.  The mental distilling process sets in later, and then you have irony instead of eloquence.  From brooding on my father, and not daring to mention his name lest I should hear evil of it, my thoughts were a proud family, proud of their origin, proud of their isolation,—­and not to be able to divine them was for the world to confess itself basely beneath their level.  But, when they did pour out, they were tremendous, as Temple found.  This oratorical display of mine gave me an ascendancy over him.  He adored eloquence, not to say grandiloquence:  he was the son of a barrister.  ’Let ‘s go and see her at once, Richie,’ he said of Julia.  ’I ’m ready to be off as soon as you like; I’m ready to do anything that will please you’; which was untrue, but it was useless to tell him so.  I sighed at my sad gift of penetration, and tossed the fresh example of it into the treasury of vanity.