His cheeks still
burnt at the remembrance; and he had been glad to hear that she was
dead: served her jolly well right! But this Aunt Mary seemed a horse of
another colour; and he did not sneak her into town by a back way, as he
had planned to do before seeing her.
Greatly as Mary might admire the tall fair lad by her side, she found
herself at a loss how to deal with him, the mind of a schoolboy of
thirteen being a closed book to her. Johnny looked demure and answered
"Yes, Aunt Mary," to everything she said; but this was of small
assistance in getting at the real boy inside.
Johnny had no intention, in the beginning, of taking her into his
often-betrayed and badly bruised confidence. However a happy instinct led
her to suggest a visit to a shop that sold brandy-snaps and gingerbeer;
and this was too much for his strength of mind. Golly, didn't he have a
tuck-in! And a whole pound of bull's-eyes to take back with him to
school!
It was over the snaps, with an earth-brown moustache drawn round his
fresh young mouth, the underlip of which swelled like a ripe cherry,
that he blurted out: "I say, Aunt Mary, DON'T let the pater stick me in
that beastly old office of his. I . . . I want to go to sea."
"Oh, but Johnny! Your father would never consent to that, I'm sure."
"I don't see why not," returned the boy in an aggrieved voice. "I hate
figures and father knows it. I tell you I mean to go to sea." And as he
said it his lip shot out, and suddenly, for all his limpid blue eyes and
flaxen hair, it was his father's face that confronted Mary.
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