BOY, BY GEORGE
MANVILLE FENN.

OR ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MADE JACK A DULL BOY.

CHAPTER ONE.

WHEN A BOY IS NOT A BOY.

"Fine morning, Jack; why don't you go and have a run?"

John Meadows--always "Jack," because his father's name was John--upon
hearing that father's voice, raised his dull, dreamy eyes slowly from
the perusal of the old Latin author over which he was bending, and
looked in Sir John's face, gazing at him inquiringly as if he had been
walking with Cicero in Rome--too far away to hear the question which had
fallen upon his ears like a sound which conveyed no meaning.

Father and son were as much alike as a sturdy sun-browned man of forty
can resemble a thin, pale youth of sixteen or so. In other words, they
possessed the same features, but the elder suggested an outdoor plant,
sturdy and well-grown, the younger a sickly exotic, raised in the hot
steaming air of the building which gardeners call a stove, a place in
which air is only admitted to pass over hot-water pipes, for fear the
plants within should shiver and begin to droop.

Sir John had just entered the handsome library, bringing with him a good
breezy, manly suggestion of having been tramping through woods and over
downs; and as soon as he had closed the door, he glanced at the large
fire near to which his son had drawn a small writing-table, said "Pff!"
unbuttoned his rough heather-coloured Norfolk jacket, raised his eyes to
the window as if he would like to throw it open, and then lowered them
and wrinkled up his forehead as he gazed at his son, carefully dressed
in dark-brown velvet, and wearing correctly fitting trousers and patent
leather shoes, a strong contrast to his own knickerbockers, coarse brown
knitted stockings, and broad-soled shooting-boots.

Sir John looked anxious and worried, and he stretched out a strong brown
hand to lay upon his son's shoulder, but he let it fall again, drew a
deep breath, and then very gently asked him the question about the walk.

"Did you speak to me, father?" said the lad vacantly.

"Speak to you!" cried Sir John, in an impatient, angry tone, "of course
I spoke to you. It worries me to see you so constantly sitting over the
fire reading."

"Does it, father?" said the lad, wincing at the tone in which these
words were spoken, and looking up in an apologetic way.

"I didn't mean to speak to you so sharply, my boy," continued Sir John,
"but I don't like to see you neglecting your health so.