allusion to our
adventure, which, as he made no movement to follow it up, or none
that he confided, I came in time to regard humorously as an escapade
of his, a holiday frolic, a piece of midsummer madness. The serious
part was that he had undoubtedly paid away large sums of money, and
for two years my Uncle Gervase had worn a distracted air which I set
down to the family accounts. By degrees I came to conclude, with the
rest of the world, that my father's brain was more than a little
cracked, and sounded my uncle privately about this--delicately as I
thought; but he met me with a fierce unexpected heat. "Your father,"
said he, "is the best man in the world, and I bid you wait to
understand him better, taking my word that he has great designs for
you." Sure enough, too, my father seemed to hint at this in the
tenor of his conversation with me, which was ever of high politics
and the government of states, or on some point which could be
stretched to bear on these; but of any immediate design he forbore--
as it seemed, carefully--to speak. Thus I found myself at pause and
let my youth wait upon his decision.

Yet I had sense enough to feel less than satisfied with myself,
albeit sorer with Nat as I watched the dear lad go from me across
the turf and out at the garden gate. Nor will I swear that my eyes
did not smart a little. I was but a boy, and had set my heart on our
travelling down to Cornwall together.

To Cornwall I rode down alone, a week later, and fell to work to idle
my vacation away; fishing a little, but oftener sailing my boat;
sometimes alone, sometimes with Billy Priske for company.
Billy--whose duties as butler were what he called a _sine qua non_,
pronounced as "shiny Canaan" and meaning a sinecure--had spent some
part of term time in netting me a trammel, of which he was
inordinately proud, and with this we amused ourselves, sailing or
rowing down to the river's mouth every evening at nightfall to set
it, and, again, soon after daybreak, to haul it, and usually
returning with good store of fish for breakfast--soles, dories,
plaice, and the red mullet for which Helford is famous above all
streams.

Now, during these lazy weeks I had not forgotten Eugenio's
advertisement, which, on returning to my rooms that evening after
Nat's rebuff, I had clipped from the newspaper and since kept in my
pocket. For the fun of it, and to find out who this Eugenio might
be--I had given over suspecting my fat