make yourself at home; I feel so already. The place has capabilities, and I hope that the next time you pay me a visit, you will find that I have taken advantage of them. I will get some pictures, and hang them up, and some pegs for my hats find fishing-rods, and hooks for my bats, and then a Dutch oven, and a frying-pan, and a better kettle than that will be useful in winter.”
“Perhaps you will not object to an arm-chair or a sofa,” observed the Squire.
“An arm-chair, certainly,” answered Reginald, “thank you; but with regard to a sofa, they are all very well for women. I think, however, that if a fellow’s legs ache, he may put them up on another chair, and if he has got an arm-chair to lean back in, he will do very well.”
“You are right, Reginald; I hate luxurious habits,” said the Squire. “Do not give way to them. They are not so bad in themselves as in consequence of what they lead to – self-indulgence and indolence: this is the vice of the present day. But come along, we have plenty to do.”
The Squire, leaving word that he would call again, took Reginald back into the town. They were getting hungry, so very naturally they proceeded in the first place to the well-remembered sock-shop, known by the world at large as a pastry-cook’s. A supply of ices and strawberry messes was at once ordered and discussed with great gusto, buns and other cakes giving some consistency to the repast. Who would have expected to see Squire Warrender, of Blessingham, who had not perhaps for years taken any other than a solid meat luncheon, with bottled stout, or a biscuit and a glass of wine, lunching off sweet cakes and strawberries and cream? But the truth was, that he did not feel just then a bit like Squire Warrender, of Blessingham; he was once more little Reginald Warrender, somewhat of a pickle, and very fond of those said luscious articles. To be sure another Reginald Warrender stood by his side; but he was, as it were, a part of himself, or it might he himself, or a younger companion. At all events he felt a great deal too young just then to be anybody’s father, and was quite surprised that the young women behind the counter did not recognise him. Surely they were the very same he must have known. While they were eating away, an old lady with spectacles on her nose, and a high white cap on her head, came into the shop.
“I have come with this youngster here to show him about the place,” said the Squire. “This is a shop I used to know well once upon a time; but the young ladies here don’t seem to recognise me.”
“I should think not,” said the old lady, laughing, as did the young ones. “Perhaps I might though, if I knew your name. What years were you here?”
The Squire told her.
“I was about their age then, and stood where they now stand,” she observed, as she went into an inner room, and brought down a longish parchment-covered volume. “Oh, I now remember you perfectly well, Master Warrender,” said she, turning over the pages, and evidently also forgetting how many years had rolled away since the Squire was Master Warrender. “You were a very good customer of ours, that you were, indeed. You had a good healthy appetite: six dozen oranges, three dozen queencakes, a couple of dozen hot-cross buns for breakfast on one occasion. I suppose you didn’t eat them all yourself though. And now I see you left owing us a little account. It was no great matter; only fifteen and sixpence for cherries and strawberries.”
“Sold, papa!” whispered Reginald, aside, and highly amused. “It is pleasant, however, to be able to pay off old scores.”
“I fear that the account is too correct,” said the Squire. “Let me see, how was it? Ah, I recollect – a wager, I am afraid. Cleveland and I. We tried to see which could eat the most in a given time. Don’t you go and do such a silly thing though, Reginald, or I’ll disinherit you. He ought to have paid, for I beat him; but I ordered them. Well, I will pay you now with interest.”
“Oh no, no, sir, thank you; I could not think of it,” said the old lady.
However, as she said the words in a tone which evidently did not mean that she positively would not receive the amount, the Squire pulled out a sovereign, and handed it to her.
“There is the sum with interest – very small interest though,” he observed. “I wish that I could pay all the debts of my younger days as easily.”
The old lady was highly pleased, and promised to stand Reginald’s friend, and to give him good advice whenever he would come to her.
“And I wish, sir,” said she, “that I could as easily get in all the debts owing to me.”
Thereon the Squire took occasion to impress very strongly on his son the importance of not running into debt. “If you cannot pay for a thing, you should not get it,” he remarked. “Never mind how much you may want it. You may fancy that you can pay some day; but before that day comes you will have wanted several other things, all of which have to be paid for out of this sum in prospect, which may possibly never come at all. Then one person will press for payment, and then another, and then you will think that there can be no harm in borrowing, and the chances are that you become the slave of the person from whom you borrow. Take my advice, Reginald, keep out of debt and be free. I have spoken only of worldly-wise motives for keeping out of debt, but it is morally wrong – it is dishonest. The Bible says, ‘Owe no man anything.’ That is right, depend on it. Some fellows fancy that it is fine and gentlemanly to run into debt, and that it is a spirited thing to bilk a tradesman. I think, and I am sure you will, that it is one of the most ungentlemanly and blackguardly things to deprive any man of his just rights, not to say unchristianlike and despicable.”
This conversation took place as the Squire and his son were walking towards the school-house. They walked about the noble edifice, under the fine arched gateway, and beneath its venerable walls. Then they looked out upon the rich green meadows, and the avenue of lofty elms, and Reginald thought it a remarkably fine place, and began already to feel proud at being able to call himself an Eton boy. As the boys were still “up,” that is, in school, the Squire proposed walking down the town to have a look at the Castle, and some of the old places on the way. As they were leaving the building, they met an old man with a vehicle loaded with tarts and buns, and cakes of all sorts. As they passed close to him, he looked hard at the Squire, and said, “Beg pardon, sir, but I think I know you, sir, though it is a good many years since you ate any of my buns.”
“And I am very certain that I know you, old fellow,” answered the Squire, highly delighted. “You are Spankie himself, or I am very much mistaken.”
“You are right, sir, the same, and that young gentleman is your son just come up here; I should have known him in a moment from his likeness to you,” said old Spankie. “Never forget anybody I have once known. Now I think of it, were not you one of those young gentlemen who played the trick to Mr Fowler, I think it was, or one of the masters of his time? What a good joke it was! Ha, ha, ha!”
“What joke do you mean?” asked the Squire. “I remember no good joke that I ever played. I am afraid that I had not wits enough.”
“I’ll tell you, sir; if you were not one of them, it was somebody else,” answered old Spankie, who probably knew that well enough, but wanted to tell a good story to gain time that he might find out, if possible, who the old Etonian was – a fact of which he was in reality perfectly ignorant. “Two of the young gentlemen, tall big lads for their ages, took it into their heads to dress up as foreigners of distinction, with moustaches and beards, and corked eyebrows, and spectacles, and large shirt-collars, with no end of gold chains, and such flash waistcoats, all of satin, and covered over with green and yellow and pink flowers. One was a Greek prince, and the other a Polish count, travelling for the improvement of their own mind, and with the intention of establishing a great public school like Eton in Greece or Turkey, or some outlandish place or other. Well, there they were walking arm in arm through the High Street, looking into the shops and around them on every side, and
