to his father,
composed, and smiling, and humming a little tune.

No ordinary observation, applying the ordinary rules of analysis, would
have detected the character of Bashwood the younger in his face. His
youthful look, aided by his light hair and his plump beardless
cheeks, his easy manner and his ever-ready smile, his eyes which met
unshrinkingly the eyes of every one whom he addressed, all combined to
make the impression of him a favorable impression in the general mind.
No eye for reading character, but such an eye as belongs to one person,
perhaps, in ten thousand, could have penetrated the smoothly deceptive
surface of this man, and have seen him for what he really was--the vile
creature whom the viler need of Society has fashioned for its own use.
There he sat--the Confidential Spy of modern times, whose business is
steadily enlarging, whose Private Inquiry Offices are steadily on
the increase. There he sat--the necessary Detective attendant on the
progress of our national civilization; a man who was, in this instance
at least, the legitimate and intelligible product of the vocation that
employed him; a man professionally ready on the merest suspicion (if the
merest suspicion paid him) to get under our beds, and to look through
gimlet-holes in our doors; a man who would have been useless to his
employers if he could have felt a touch of human sympathy in his
father's presence; and who would have deservedly forfeited his situation
if, under any circumstances whatever, he had been personally accessible
to a sense of pity or a sense of shame.

"Gently does it, old gentleman," he repeated, lifting the covers from
the dishes, and looking under them one after the other all round the
table. "Gently does it!"

"Don't be angry with me, Jemmy," pleaded his father. "Try, if you
can, to think how anxious I must be. I got your letter so long ago
as yesterday morning. I have had to travel all the way from Thorpe
Ambrose--I have had to get through the dreadful long evening and the
dreadful long night--with your letter telling me that you had found out
who she is, and telling me nothing more. Suspense is very hard to bear,
Jemmy, when you come to my age. What was it prevented you, my dear, from
coming to me when I got here yesterday evening?"

"A little dinner at Richmond," said Bashwood the younger. "Give me some
tea."

Mr. Bashwood tried to comply with the request; but the hand with which
he lifted the teapot trembled