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This had occurred when George was twenty-five.

Matters fell out rather as George had predicted. The youth almost at once obtained a commission for three hundred pounds’ worth of symbolic statues for the front of the central offices of the Order of Rechabites, which particularly pleased his uncle, because Samuel Peel was a strong temperance man. And George got one or two other commissions.

Being extravagant was to George Peel the same thing as “putting all the profits into the business” is to a manufacturer. He was extravagant and ostentatious on principle, and by far-sighted policy–or, at least, he thought that he was.

And thus the world’s rumours multiplied his success, and many persons said and believed that he was making quite two thousand a year, and would be an A.R.A. before he was grey-haired. But George always related the true facts to his uncle-in-law; he even made them out to be much less satisfactory than they really were. His favourite phrase in letters to his uncle was that he was “building,” “building”–not houses, but his future reputation and success.

Then commissions fell off or grew intermittent, or were refused as being unworthy of George’s dignity. And then young Georgie arrived, with his insatiable appetites and his vociferous need of doctors, nurses, perambulators, nurseries, and lacy garments. And all the time young George’s father kept his head high and continued to be extravagant by far-sighted policy. And the five hundred a year kept coming in regularly by quarterly instalments. Many a tight morning George nearly decided that Mary must write to her uncle and ask for a little supplementary estimate. But he never did decide, partly because he was afraid, and partly from sheer pride. (According to his original statements to his uncle-in-law, seven years earlier, he ought at this epoch to have been in an assured position with a genuine income of thousands.)

But the state of trade worsened, and he had a cheque dishonoured. And then he won the Triennial Gold Medal. And then at length he did arrange with Mary that she should write to old Samuel and roundly ask him for an extra couple of hundred. They composed the letter together; and they stated the reasons so well, and convinced themselves so completely of the righteousness of their cause, that for a few moments they looked on the two hundred as already in hand. Hence the Heidsieck night. But on the morrow of the Heidsieck night they thought differently. And George was gloomy. He felt humiliated by the necessity of the application to his uncle–the first he had ever made. And he feared the result.

His fears were justified.

III

They were far more than justified. Three mornings after the first letter, to which she had made no reply, Mary received a second. It ran:

“DEAR MARY,–And what is more, I shall henceforth pay you three hundred instead of five hundred a year. If George has not made a position for himself it is quite time he had. The Gold Medal must make a lot of difference to him. And if necessary you must economize. I am sure there is room for economy in your household. Champagne, for instance.–Your affectionate uncle, SAMUEL PEEL.

“P.S.–I am, of course, acting in your best interests.

“S.P.”

This letter infuriated George, so much so that George the younger, observing strange symptoms on his father’s face, and strange sounds issuing from his father’s mouth, stopped eating in order to give the whole of his attention to them.

“Champagne! What’s he driving at?” exclaimed George, glaring at Mary as though it was Mary who had written the letter.

“I expect he’s been reading that paper,” said Mary.

“Do you mean to say,” George asked scornfully, “that your uncle reads a rag like that? I thought all his lot looked down on worldliness.”

“So they do,” said Mary. “But somehow they like reading about it. I believe uncle has read it every week for twenty years.”

“Well, why didn’t you tell me?”