Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/107

95 'Come, come!' he said.—'Now don't be foolish, Leicester. If you are going to …' I stepped to him suddenly, saying:

'Sir, sir, you are very good to me!' He took my hand in his and pressed it.

'Yes, yes, yes, yes! that's all right now!—Now you really must run away! You said that you would like to come to me to-morrow morning, didn't you?—Very well. I will tell you about what you will have to do, then. So good-bye, or rather au revoir, or rather (when I think of it) both.'

I was at the door, when he called:

'O you dreadful boy, you haven't taken all your belongings away with you! Here is your first quarter on the table yet. You are inclined to be careless, I see. Look to it. It is an evil, evil vice—carelessness!' I found that I could scarcely see the folded pieces of paper that he had put down on the edge of the table. When I had it safely in my hand, I gave one look at him and a bright smile, and went out as quickly as I could; for my eyes were full of tears, and I feared some might drop out.

Riding up on the outside of an omnibus to Praed Street, I felt as I had felt in some of the days at Glastonbury when I had longed to leap and give a shout and move onwards towards something. And then I grew a little sad, if it is possible to call joy sad, and began to say to myself:

'Well, well, pray that there is a God; for you long to thank Him for this! And see, it is very sweet to you to think, that perhaps, perhaps, He has but afflicted you and chastened you by this your suffering so that, in the end, He might lead you nearer and nearer to Himself.… It is a sweet thought!'

I spent that afternoon happily. First of all I had a good dinner at a restaurant in Oxford Street, and that gave me an insight into what a healthy pleasure in food meant: and then (the day continuing sunny and almost warm) I went for a long walk in Hyde Park, stopping to look at the men and women riding or driving by, and not one of whom I, in this bright day's dawn of a