one back. Life! Life! Knew it up and
down, in and out. Damn reformation, teetotality, the earnest, and the
strenuous. Good women were unmitigated bores, and he.... A sharp knock
at the door.

"_Kon hai_?"[47] he called. "_Under ao_."[48]

[47] Who's there.
[48] Come in.

The door opened and large Mr. Dearman walked in. He bore a nasty-looking
malacca cane in his hand--somewhat ostentatiously.

"Hullo, Dearman!" said Augustus after a decidedly startled and anxious
look. "What is it? Sit down. I'm just back from College. Have a drink?"

Large Mr. Dearman considered these things _seriatim_.

"I will sit down as I want a talk with you. You are a liar in the matter
of just being back from College. I will not have a drink." He then
lapsed into silence and looked at Augustus very straight and very
queerly, while bending the nasty malacca suggestively. The knees of
Augustus smote together.

Good God! It had come at last! The thrashing he had so often earned was
at hand. What should he do? What _should_ he do!

Dearman thought the young man was about to faint.

"Fine malacca that, isn't it?" he asked.

"Ye-yes!"

"Swishy, supple, tough."

"Ye-yes!" (How could the brute be such a fool as to be jealous now--now
when it was all cooling off and coming to an end?)

"Grand stick to thrash a naughty boy with, what?"

"Ye-yes!--Dearman, I swear before God that there is nothing between me
and----"

"Shut up, you infernal God-forsaken cub, or I shall have to whip you.
I----"

"Dearman, if you are jealous of me----"

"Better be quiet and listen, or _I_ shall get cross, and _you'll_ get
hurt.... You have given us the pleasure of a great deal of your company
this year, and I have come to ask you----"

"Dearman, I have not been so much lately, and I--"

"That's what I complain of, my young friend."

"What?"

"That's what I complain of! I have come to protest against your making
yourself almost necessary to me, in a sense, and then--er--deserting me,
in a sense."

"You are mocking me, Dearman. If you wish to take advantage of my being
half your size and strength to assault me, you----"

"Not a bit of it, my dear Augustus. I am in most deadly earnest, as
you'll find if you are contumacious when I make my little proposition.
What I say is this. _I_ have grown to take an interest in you, Augustus.
_I_ have been very kind to you and tried to make a better man of you.
_I_ have been a sort of mother to you, and yo