t think it respectable enough, dear. He wants you to rise
higher in the world, and to make money. You must remember who he is."

"Bosh!" said Johnny. "Look at Uncle Ned ... and Uncle Jerry ... and the
governor himself. He didn't have to sit in a beastly old hole of an
office when he was my age."

"That was quite different," said Mary weakly. "And as for your Uncle
Jerry, Johnny--why, afterwards he was as glad as could be to get into
an office at all."

"Well, I'd sooner be hanged!" retorted young John. But the next minute
flinging away dull care, he inquired briskly: "Can you play tipcat,
Aunt Mary?" And vanquished by her air of kindly interest, he gave her
his supreme confidence. "I say, don't peach, will you, but I've got a
white rat. I keep it in a locker under my bed."

A NICE FRANK HANDSOME BOY, wrote Mary. DON'T BE TOO HARD ON HIM, JOHN.
HIS GREAT WISH IS TO TRAVEL AND SEE THE WORLD--OR AS HE PUTS IT, TO GO
TO SEA. MIGHTN'T IT BE A GOOD THING TO HUMOUR HIM IN THIS? A TASTE OF
THE HARDSHIPS OF LIFE WOULD SOON CURE HIM OF ANY SUCH FANCIES.

"Stuff and nonsense!" said John the father, and threw the letter from
him. "I didn't send Mary there to let the young devil get round her
like that." And thereupon he wrote to the Headmaster that the screw was
to be applied to Johnny as never before. This was his last chance. If
it failed, and his next report showed no improvement, he would be taken
away without further ado and planked down under his father's nose. No
son of his should go to sea, he was damned if they should! For, like
many another who has yielded to the wandering passion in his youth,
John had small mercy on it when it reared its head in his descendants.

Chapter IX

Henry Ocock was pressing for a second opinion; his wife had been in
poor health since the birth of her last child. Mahony drove to Plevna
House one morning between nine and ten o'clock.

A thankless task lay before him. Mrs. Henry's case had been a fruitful
source of worry to him; and he now saw nothing for it but a straight
talk with Henry himself.

He drove past what had once been the Great Swamp. From a bed of
cattle-ploughed mud interspersed with reedy water-holes; in summer a
dry and dust-swept hollow: from this, the vast natural depression had
been transformed into a graceful lake, some three hundred acres in
extent. On its surface pleasure boats lay at their moorings by jetties
and boatsheds; groups of stiff-necked swans s