Page:What Will He Do With It? - Routledge - Volume 2.djvu/51

 speculation. You begin by what you call trusting a friend, that is, aiding him to self-destruction--buying him arsenic to clear his complexion--you end by dragging all near you into your own abyss, as a drowning man would clutch at his own brother. Lionel Haughton, the saddest expression I ever saw in your father's face was when--when--but you shall hear the story--"

"No, sir; spare me. Since you so insist on it, I will give the promise--it is enough; and my father--"

"Was as honourable as you when he first signed his name to a friend's bill; and, perhaps, promised to do so no more as reluctantly as you do. You had better let me say on; if I stop now, you will forget all about it by this day twelve-month; if I go on, you will never forget. There are other examples besides your father; I am about to name one."

Lionel resigned himself to the operation, throwing his handkerchief over his face as if he had taken chloroform. "When I was young," resumed the Colonel, "I chanced to make acquaintance with a man of infinite whim and humour; fascinating as Darrell himself, though in a very different way. We called him Willy--you know the kind of man one calls by his Christian name, cordially abbreviated--that kind of man seems never to be quite grown up; and, therefore, never rises in life. I never knew a man called Willy after the age of thirty, who did not come to a melancholy end! Willy was the natural son of a rich, helter-skelter, cleverish, maddish, stylish, raffish, four-in-hand Baronet, by a celebrated French actress. The title is extinct now, and so, I believe, is that genus of stylish, raffish, four-in-hand Baronet--Sir Julian Losely--"

"Losely!" echoed Lionel. "Yes; do you know the name?"

"I never heard it till yesterday. I want to tell you what I did hear then--but after your story--go on."

"Sir Julian Losely (Willy's father) lived with the French lady as his wife, and reared Willy in his house, with as much pride and fondness as if he intended him for his heir. The poor boy, I suspect, got but little regular education; though of course, he spoke his French mother's tongue like a native; and, thanks also perhaps to his mother, he had an extraordinary talent for mimicry and acting. His father was passionately fond of private theatricals, and Willy had