ed with such concerns as those of Travers and Treason. I and
your poor mother cannot get rid of you and the disgrace which you
have entailed upon us. Travers and Treason can easily get rid of
you." Tom knew very well that his father was, in fact, Travers and
Treason, but he did not yet feel that an opportunity had come in
which he could wisely speak a word. "What have you got to say for
yourself, Sir?" demanded Sir Thomas.

"Of course, I'm very sorry," muttered Tom.

"Sorry, Tom! A young man holding your position in Travers and Treason
ought not to have to be sorry for having been locked up in prison for
a week for maltreating a policeman! What do you think must be done,
yourself?"

"The man had been hauling me about in the street."

"You were drunk, no doubt."

"I had been drinking. I am not going to tell a lie about it. But he
needn't have done as he did. Faddle knows that, and can tell you."

"What can have driven you to associate with such a young man as
Faddle? That is the worst part of it. Do you know what Faddle and
Company are,--stock jobbers, who ten years ago hadn't a thousand
pounds in the way of capital among them! They've been connected with
a dozen companies, none of which are floating now, and have made
money out of them all! Do you think that Travers and Treason will
accept a young man as a partner who associates with such people as
that?"

"I have seen old Faddle's name and yours on the same prospectus
together, Sir."

"What has that to do with it? You never saw him inside our counter.
What a name to appear along with yours in such an affair as this! If
it hadn't been for that, you might have got over it. Young men will
be young men. Faddle! I think you will have to go abroad for a time,
till it has been forgotten."

"I should like to stay, just at present, Sir," said Tom.

"What good can you do?"

"All the same, I should like to stay, Sir."

"I was thinking that, if you were to take a tour through the United
States, go across to San Francisco, then up to Japan, and from thence
through some of the Chinese cities down to Calcutta and Bombay,
you might come back by the Euphrates Valley to Constantinople, see
something of Bulgaria and those countries, and so home by Vienna and
Paris. The Euphrates Valley Railway will be finished by that time,
perhaps, and Bulgaria will be as settled as Hertfordshire. You'd see
something of the world, and I could let it be understood that you
were travellin