Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/83



Mr. Roland turned up one day without any warning. The Sorrells, returning fromefrom [sic] one of their councils of state upon Castle Hill, found the red car standing outside the entrance to Vine Court. Roland himself was sitting in Mrs. Garland's parlour, and Mrs. Garland was telling him about the Sorrells and how she had agreed to board the boy.

"Oh, he has arranged that, has he?"

"Yes, sir."

Roland felt relieved. He had made up his mind to show no favouritism, and he had half expected Sorrell to ask him to allow Christopher to live with him at the Pelican. Sorrell's decision had saved him the effort of a refusal, for Roland knew that his own particular weakness was a too sensitive good-nature.

"Well, my lad, getting ready to go to school?"

He held Kit by the arm.

"I am going to the council school, sir."

"You are? And I hear you have been up Mrs. Garland's apple tree."

"Only once, sir. And she knew about it."

Kit's three elders laughed, and he wondered why.

Mr. Roland was staying at the Pelican, and he took Sorrell back with him to show him over the hotel, and in the hotel garden as they were passing through an archway in one of the yew hedges Roland paused with a question.

"That boy of yours? What's your idea?"

"In what way, sir?"

"About the school?"

"The town school. He decided it himself. I had thought of trying the Grammar School,—but I think the boy realized."

"Did he?"

"We agreed on our motto: no humbug. He won't have to apologize for me—at the town school."

"I don't look at it in that way, but the boy's right. I rather envy you, Sorrell."

"He is the only thing I have got, sir."

They walked on, and Roland stopped to look at an old