I replied that I knew my father better now, and was asked how the deuce I knew him better; it was the world I knew better after my stay on the Continent.

I contained myself enough to say, ‘Very well, the world, sir.’

‘Flirted with one of their princesses?’ He winked.

‘On that subject I will talk to you some other time,’ said I.

‘Got to pay an indemnity? or what?’ He professed alarm, and pushed for explanations, with the air of a man of business ready to help me if need were.  ’Make a clean breast of it, Harry.  You ’re not the son of Tom Fool the Bastard for nothing, I’ll swear.  All the same you’re Beltham; you’re my grandson and heir, and I’ll stand by you.  Out with ’t!  She’s a princess, is she?’

The necessity for correcting his impressions taught me to think the moment favourable.  I said, ‘I am engaged to her, sir.’

He returned promptly:  ‘Then you’ll break it off.’

I shook my head.

‘Why, you can’t jilt my girl at home!’ said he.

‘Do you find a princess objectionable, sir?’

’Objectionable?  She’s a foreigner.  I don’t know her.  I never saw her.  Here’s my Janet I’ve brought up for you, under my own eyes, out of the way of every damned soft-sawderer, safe and plump as a melon under a glass, and you fight shy of her, and go and engage yourself to a foreigner I don’t know and never saw!  By George, Harry, I’ll call in a parson to settle you soon as ever we sight Riversley.  I’ll couple you, by George, I will! ’fore either of you know whether you’re on your legs or your backs.’

We were in the streets of London, so he was obliged to moderate his vehemence.

‘Have you consulted Janet?’ said I.

‘Consulted her? ever since she was a chick with half a feather on.’

‘A chick with half a feather on,’ I remarked, ’is not always of the same mind as a piece of poultry of full plumage.’

’Hang your sneering and your talk of a fine girl, like my Janet, as a piece of poultry, you young rooster!  You toss your head up like a cock too conceited to crow.  I ’ll swear the girl ’s in love with you.  She does you the honour to be fond of you.  She ’s one in a million.  A handsome girl, straight-backed, honest, just a dash, and not too much, of our blood in her.’

‘Consult her again, sir,’ I broke in.  ’You will discover she is not of your way of thinking.’

‘Do you mean to say she’s given you a left-hander, Harry?’

‘I have only to say that I have not given her the option.’

He groaned going up the steps of his hotel, faced me once or twice, and almost gained my sympathy by observing, ’When we’re boys, the old ones worry us; when we’re old ones, the boys begin to tug!’ He rarely spoke so humanely,—­rarely, at least, to me.

For a wonder, he let the matter drop:  possibly because he found me temperate.  I tried the system on him with good effect during our stay in London; that is, I took upon myself to be always cool, always courteous, deliberate in my replies, and not uncordial, though I was for representing the reserved young man.  I obtained some praise for my style and bearing among his acquaintances.  To one lady passing an encomium on me, he said, ‘Oh, some foreign princess has been training him,’ which seemed to me of good augury.