"Where did _you_ get it from anyhow? If I thought you'd sneaked it,
I'd----"
"I got it from my Uncle Horace," I said. "He is an amateur astronomer
and understands the stars."
"Well, I ought to understand three balls by this time," answered the
major-general, though what this meant I have never understood myself to
this day.
Then he began to make me rather uncomfortable, and I detected a good
deal of vulgarity in him. But doubtless it often turns people vulgar
and brutal to come down in the world, owing to having to mix with their
inferiors and suchlike.
Now he began to ask me about myself in a very cross-questioning manner,
and at last it seemed to me that I must tell him the truth. In fact, he
kept on so about who I was and where I had come from, that it got to be
a simple question between telling him the truth and telling him a lie.
Therefore, of course, I told him the truth, and said that my name was
Richmond and that I had lately changed my way of life by leaving school
in order to do some public work in the way of goodness.
He seemed much surprised.
"You've run away from school then?" he exclaimed.
"Yes," I said; "but of course I am telling you this in the strictest
confidence."
He quite saw that, and said that he regarded the confidence as a great
compliment to him. He became perfectly friendly again and said that,
when a boy, he had run away from school also, and that most boys of
spirit did so--in fact, nearly every boy who ever made much of a mark in
the world began in that manner. I reminded him that he had been to Eton
and Oxford, and he admitted it. It was from Eton that he had run away,
but he had been subsequently captured and taken back.
"Now you have confided in me," he said, "I think I can really be of some
practical use to you."
He guessed at the time and said, that if we put our best foot foremost,
we ought to be in Exeter by midnight. I remember, curiously enough,
wondering which was his best foot--the one in the lace-up boot, or the
one with elastic sides. Anyway, we set off after I had shared my last
shilling with him. This he changed into food and drink at a small
public-house by the wayside.
"At Exeter," he said, "I am widely known and respected. When we get
there, certain people will welcome me in a friendly spirit, and I am
quite sure they will welcome you too. In fact, I can promise you a very
warm welcome and a good night's rest."
"Will they take the telescope?" I asked.
"No," he said. "They are not people like that. When they understand
the situation, they will be perfectly well satisfied with you as you
are."
I was glad that the major-general had come back to this quieter and
wiser frame of mind, and thanked him.
"I hope it may be in my power to do you a service some day," I said; and
then, in his turn, he thanked me.
"You never know," he replied. "You may be able to do me a good turn
even sooner than you think for."
He smoked thousands more cigarettes, and asked me about my home and my
family. He was rather interested to hear that my father was a rural
dean, and kindly hoped that he made a good thing out of it. I told him
that I believed he did; but I explained to him that money was not
everything--indeed, far from it--and that too much is a great
temptation. He said that he had never had enough, even in his palmiest
days, to judge; and I said--
"There are many precious things that money will not buy, major-general.
You must admit that. It won't buy affection, for instance."