"But he's only got his niece, Margery, and his butler, and his cook! The
cook's awfully good to him. Makes his favorite pudding any day he wants
it."
"Ay, but he's got me too," said Harry solemnly, "or, at least, he _should_
have me. We're at the outs."
"Well, then, all you have to do is to make friends, isn't it?"
"Not so simple as it sounds," replied Harry gloomily.
"I have been a bad son to him." He rose abruptly and began walking up and
down the room. I got to my feet too, and strode beside him, hands deep in
pockets. I longed for a short thick pipe.
"I never did what he wanted me to," pursued Harry. "He wanted me to stick
at college and make something of myself, but all I cared to do was to knock
about with chaps who weren't good for me, and I simply wouldn't study. So
we had words. Hot ones too. I left home with a little money my mother had
left me. I was twenty-one then--five years ago." He looked down in my face
with his sudden smile. "You're a rum little toad," he said. "I like to talk
to you, John."
I thought: "When I'm a man I'll have a pipe like that, and hold it in my
teeth when I talk."
Harry sat down on the side of his tumbled bed clasping an ankle.
"For three years," he went on, "I knocked about from one country to another
seeing the world, till at last all my money was gone. Then I came back to
England but I wouldn't go to my father until I had done something that
would justify myself--make him proud of me. It seemed to me that I could
become a great actor if I had a chance. Very well. After a lot of waiting
and disappointments I got an engagement with a third rate company that
travelled mostly on one-night stands--you understand?
"I have been at it ever since, playing all sorts of parts--companies
breaking up without salaries being paid--then another just as bad--cheap
lodgings--bad food--and long stretches of being out of a job altogether. I
am that way now. I have only seen my father once in all this time. It was
simply--well--" He gave his funny smile and shook his head ruefully.