"The young rascal has ability, they tell me, but
no application." John propounded various theories to account for the boy
having turned out poorly, chief among which was that he had been left
too long in the hands of women. They had overindulged him. "Mary no more
than the rest, my dear fellow," he hastened to smooth Mahony's rising
plumes. "It began with his mother in the first place. Yes, poor Emma was
weak with the boy--lamentably weak!"
Here, with a disconcerting abruptness, he drew to him a blue linen bag
that lay on the seat, and loosening its string took out a sheaf of
official papers, in which he was soon engrossed. He had had enough of
Mahony's conversation in the meantime, or so it seemed; had thought of
something better to do, and did it.
His brother-in-law eyed him as he read. "He's a bad colour. Been living
too high, no doubt."
A couple of new books were on the seat by Mahony; but he did not open
them. He had a tiring day behind him, and the briefest of nights.
Besides attending the masonic ceremony, which had lasted into the small
hours, he had undertaken to make various purchases, not the least
difficult of which was the buying of a present for Mary--all the little
fal-lals that went to finish a lady's ball-dress. Railway-travelling
was, too, something of a novelty to him nowadays; and he sat idly
watching the landscape unroll, and thinking of nothing in particular.
The train was running through mile after mile of flat, treeless country,
liberally sprinkled with trapstones and clumps of tussock grass, which
at a distance could be mistaken for couched sheep.
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