're meditating it,--are you? I shouldn't go just at present, because
I have not got a sovereign in the world. I was going to speak to you
about money. You must let me have some."

"Upon my word, I like your impudence!"

"What the devil am I to do? The governor has asked me to go down to
Tretton, and I can't go without a five-pound note in my pocket."

"The governor has asked you to Tretton?"

"Why not? I got a letter from him this morning." Then Augustus asked to
see the letter, but Mountjoy refused to show it. From this there arose
angry words, and Augustus told his brother that he did not believe him.
"Not believe me? You do believe me! You know that what I say is the
truth, He has asked me with all his usual soft soap. But I have refused
to go. I told him that I could not go to the house of one who had
injured my mother so seriously."

All that Mountjoy said as to the proposed visit to Tretton was true. The
squire had written to him without mentioning the name of Augustus, and
had told him that, for the present, Tretton would be the best home for
him. "I will do what I can to make you happy, but you will not see a
card," the squire had said. It was not the want of cards which prevented
Mountjoy, but a feeling on his part that for the future there could be
nothing but war between him and his father. It was out of the question
that he should accept his father's hospitality without telling him of
his intention, and he did not know his father well enough to feel that
such a declaration would not affect him at all. He had, therefore,
declined.

Then Harry Annesley's name was mentioned. "I think I've done for that
fellow," said Augustus.

"What have you done?"

"I've cooked his goose. In the first place, his uncle has stopped his
allowance, and in the second place the old fellow is going to marry a
wife. At any rate, he has quarrelled with Master Harry _a outrance_.
Master Harry has gone back to the parental parsonage, and is there
eating the bread of affliction and drinking the waters of poverty.
Flossy Mountjoy may marry him if she pleases. A girl may marry a man now
without leave from anybody. But if she does my dear cousin will have
nothing to eat."

"And you have done this?"

"'Alone I did it, boy.'"

"Then it's an infernal shame. What harm had he ever done you? For me I
had some ground of quarrel with him, but for you there was none."

"I have my own quarrel with him also."

"I quarrelled with him--w