Whenever Mr. Piper made allusion to George's want of occupation, it was the young man's policy to refer to this tour of inspection--a memorable tour, seeing that it had given him employment for at least three months.... If there was anything humiliating in being rated as an 'able-bodied young man who wasn't worth his salt,' as a loafer who was hardly fit to 'jackaroo' on a station, as a 'lazy lubber' who would 'go to the dogs if it weren't for his father,' George never betrayed that he felt humiliated by so much as the twitching of an eyelid. Persistently stroking the ends of his moustache with an air of profound abstraction, he made it apparent, as soon as Mr. Piper stopped to take breath, that he was suppressing an inclination to yawn. 'I dare say it's all very true, governor,' was all he said in reply. 'It's very nice and complimentary, I'm sure, and I ought to be very much obliged to you. But, _à propos_ of your compliments, may I ask if it was only to treat me to them in full that you brought me up those confounded tower steps this morning? Because, in that case, I wouldn't have minded waiting, you know. It's hardly fair upon a man, is it, to put him to the treadmill before he's well awake in the morning?' 'If you were like other young men,' retorted Mr. Piper, 'you'd be up and down them steps twenty times a day' (George shuddered); 'but oh no! my gentleman can crawl on to the lawn and carry on with a----' 'Stop there!' cried George, in a tone that made his father silent through sheer astonishment (George had never been known to raise his voice before). 'Do you know the relation in which Laura stands to me?' He looked Mr. Piper full in the face as he said it, and seeing the ghastly change that came over the face as he looked, he felt that he had been over-hasty. For the glass through which Mr. Piper had made a feint of looking dropped from his quivering fingers and his lips worked in a distorted fashion over his discoloured teeth; the blood rushing away from his florid cheeks left them streaked with thready, sanguineous veins, mottling the ash-coloured patches; and rushed back again with a force that seemed to swell the veins round his temples to bursting.... 'What's the matter, father?' said George at last, not with any of Louey's vehement alarm, but eyeing him rather gravely and curiously. 'Do you object to my looking upon Laura in the light of a--_sister_?' 'Eh?' said Mr. Piper. His power of articulation was slowly returning, but his breath as yet was only equal to the monosyllable. 'Of a sister,' repeated George slowly, 'and a friend.'