Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/26

 prevailed on him to play cards for stakes which he could not afford. . . “He won’t want,” Brackenbury went on with the insolence of a man who has never done a hand’s turn in his life, “if he’ll only buckle down to it and work. Or he could spend less money.” This, I knew, was a “dig” at me. Before my boy had time to learn how very little distance his army pay would take him, I had asked my brother to tide him over a passing difficulty. Would you not have thought that any uncle would have welcomed the opportunity? I said nothing. And then Brackenbury had the assurance to criticize my way of life and to ask why I kept on the house in Mount Street if it always meant “pulling the devil by the tail,” as he so elegantly expressed it. Why did I not take a less expensive house? And so on and so forth. I suppose he imagined that I could ask the princess to come to Bayswater. . . “Do not,” I said, “let us discuss the matter any more. It is unpleasant to be a pauper, but more unpleasant to be a beggar. If my boy wins through with his life—” “Oh, you needn’t worry about that,” said Brackenbury. “They tell me he’s on a staff which has never even heard a shot fired.” They tell me. . . Does not that phrase always put you on your guard, as it were? Of