Bounderby, "I was punctual, or I got no
dinner!"

"When you were my age," returned Tom,
"you hadn't a wrong balance to get right,
and hadn't to dress afterwards."

"Never mind that now," said Bounderby.

"Well, then," grumbled Tom. " Don't begin
with me."

"Mrs. Bounderby," said Harthouse,
perfectly hearing this under-strain as it went
on; " your brother's face is quite familiar
to me. Can I have seen him abroad? Or
at some public school, perhaps?"

"No," she returned, quite interested,
"he has never been abroad yet, and was
educated here, at-home. Tom, love, I am
telling Mr. Harthouse that he never saw you
abroad."

"No such luck, sir," said Tom.

There was little enough in him to brighten
her face, for he was a sullen young fellow,
and ungracious in his manner even to her.
So much the greater must have been the solitude
of her heart, and her need of some one
on whom to bestow it. " So much the more
is this whelp the only creature she has ever
cared for," thought Mr. James Harthouse,
turning it over and over. " So much the
more. So much the more."

Both in his sister's presence, and after she
had left the room, the whelp took no pains
to hide his contempt for Mr. Bounderby,
whenever he could indulge it without the
observation of that independent man, by
making wry faces, or shutting one eye. Without
responding to these telegraphic
communications, Mr. Harthouse encouraged him
much in the course of the evening, and
showed an unusual liking for him. At last,
when he rose to return to his hotel, and was
a little doubtful whether he knew the way
by night, the whelp immediately proffered
his services as guide, and turned out with
him to escort him thither.

                   CHAPTER XIX.

It was very remarkable that a young
gentleman who had been brought up under one
continuous system of unnatural restraint,
should be a hypocrite; but it was certainly
the case with Tom. It was very strange
that a young gentleman who had never
been left to his own guidance for five consecutive
minutes, should be incapable at last of
governing himself; but so it was with Tom.
It was altogether unaccountable that a
young gentleman whose imagination had
been strangled in his cradle, should be still
inconvenienced by its ghost in the form of
grovelling sensualities; but such a monster,
beyond all doubt, was Tom.

"Do you smoke? " asked Mr. James
Harthouse, when they came to the hotel.

"I believe you!" said Tom.

He could do no less than ask Tom up;
and Tom could do no less than go up. What
with a cooling drink adapted to the weather,
but not so weak as cool; and what with a
rarer tobacco than was to be bought in those
parts; Tom was soon in a highly free and
easy state at his end of the sofa, and more
than ever disposed to admire his new friend
at the other end.

Tom blew his smoke aside, after he had
been smoking a little while, and took an
observation of his friend. " He don't seem
to care about his dress," thought Tom, " and
yet how capitally he does it. What an easy
swell he is!"

Mr. James Harthouse, happening to catch
Tom's eye, remarked that he drank nothing,
and filled his glass with his own negligent
hand.

"Thank'ee," said Tom. Thank'ee. Well,
Mr. Harthouse, I hope you have had about
a dose of old Bounderby to-night." Tom
said this with one eye shut up again, and
looking over his glass knowingly, at his
entertainer.

"A very good fellow indeed! " returned
Mr. James Harthouse.

"You think so, don't you? " said Tom.
And shut up his eye again.

Mr. James Harthouse smiled; and rising
from his end of the sofa, and lounging with
his back against the chimney-piece, so that he
stood before the empty fire-grate as he
smoked, in front of Tom and looking down
at him, observed:

"What a comical brother-in-law you are!"

"What a comical brother-in-law old
Bounderby is, I think you mean," said Tom.

"You are a piece of caustic, Tom," retorted
Mr. James Harthouse.

There was something so very agreeable in
being so intimate with such a waistcoat; in
being called Tom, by such a voice; in being
on such off-hand terms so soon, with such a
pair of whiskers; that Tom was uncommonly
pleased with himself.

"Oh! I don't care for old Bounderby,"
said he, " if you mean that. I have always
called old Bounderby by the same name
when I have talked about him, and I have
always thought of him in the same way. I
am not going to begin to be polite now,
about old Bounderby. It would be rather
late in the day."

"Don't mind me," returned James; " but
take care when his wife is by, you know."

"His wife? " said Tom. " My sister Loo?
O yes! " And he laughed, and took a little
more of the cooling drink.

James Harthouse continued to lounge in
the same place and attitude, smoking
his cigar in his own easy way, and looking
pleasantly at the whelp, as if he knew himself
to be a kind of agreeable demon who had only
to hover over him, and he must give up his
whole soul if required. It certainly did seem
that the whelp yielded to this influence.
He looked at his companion sneakingly,
he looked at him admiringly, he looked at
him boldly, and put up one leg on the sofa.