atter-of-fact, and unless it was his duty to be
hilarious at the dinner-table, he was hardly able to respond to a call
on his past life and mine. His future, too, was present tense: 'We do
this,' not 'we will do this'; so that, generally, no sooner did we speak
of an anticipated scene than he was acting in it. I studied him eagerly,
I know, and yet quite unconsciously, and I came to no conclusions. Boys
are always putting down the ciphers of their observations of people
beloved by them, but do not add up a sum total.

Our journey home occupied nearly eleven weeks, owing to stress of money
on two occasions. In Brussels I beheld him with a little beggar-girl in
his arms.

'She has asked me for a copper coin, Richie,' he said, squeezing her fat
cheeks to make cherries of her lips.

I recommended him to give her a silver one.

'Something, Richie, I must give the little wench, for I have kissed her,
and, in my list of equivalents, gold would be the sole form of repayment
after that. You must buy me off with honour, my boy.'

I was compelled to receive a dab from the child's nose, by way of a
kiss, in return for buying him off with honour.

The child stumped away on the pavement fronting our hotel, staring at
its fist that held the treasure.

'Poor pet wee drab of it!' exclaimed my father. 'One is glad, Richie,
to fill a creature out of one's emptiness. Now she toddles; she is
digesting it rapidly. The last performance of one's purse is rarely so
pleasant as that. I owe it to her that I made the discovery in time.'

In this manner I also made the discovery that my father had no further
supply of money, none whatever. How it had run out without his remarking
it, he could not tell; he could only assure me that he had become
aware of the fact while searching vainly for a coin to bestow on the
beggar-girl. I despatched a letter attested by a notary of the city,
applying for money to the banker to whom Colonel Goodwin had introduced
me on my arrival on the Continent. The money came, and in the meantime
we had formed acquaintances and entertained them; they were chiefly
half-pay English military officers, dashing men. One, a Major Dykes, my
father established in our hotel, and we carried him on to Paris, where,
consequent upon our hospitalities, the purse was again deficient.

Two reasons for not regretting it were adduced by my father; firstly,
that it taught me not to despise the importance of possessing money;
secondly