"Only as a speculation. Of course my father, while he lives, is justified in giving his whole income to doctors if he likes it; but one gets into a manner of speaking about him as though he had done a good deal with his money in which he was not justified." "Don't talk in that way, Augustus." "My dear aunt, I am not at all inclined to be more open-mouthed than he is. Only reflect what it was that he was disposed to do with me, and the good-humor with which I have borne it!" "I think I should hold my tongue about it," said Harry Annesley. "And I think that in my place you would do no such thing. To your nature it would be almost impossible to hold your tongue. Your sense of justice would be so affronted that you would feel yourself compelled to discuss the injury done to you with all your intimate friends. But with your father your quarrel would be eternal. I made nothing of it, and, indeed, if he pertinaciously held his tongue on the subject, so should I." "But because he talks," said Harry, "why should you?" "Why should he not?" said Septimus Jones. "Upon my word I don't see the justice of it." "I am not speaking of justice, but of feeling." "Upon my word I wish you would hold your tongues about it; at any rate till my back is turned," said the old lady. Then Augustus finished the conversation. "I am determined to treat it all as though it were a joke, and, as a joke, one to be spoken of lightly. It was a strong measure, certainly, this attempt to rob me of twenty or thirty thousand pounds a year. But it was done in favor of my brother, and therefore let it pass. I am at a loss to conceive what my father has done with his money. He hasn't given Mountjoy, at any rate, more than a half of his income for the last five or six years, and his own personal expenses are very small. Yet he tells me that he has the greatest difficulty in raising a thousand pounds, and positively refuses in his present difficulties to add above five hundred a year to my former allowance. No father who had thoroughly done his duty by his son, could speak in a more fixed and austere manner. And yet he knows that every shilling will be mine as soon as he goes." The servant who was waiting upon them had been in and out of the room while this was said, and must have heard much of it. But to that Augustus seemed to be quite indifferent. And, indeed, the whole family story was known to every servant in the house. It is true that gentlemen and ladies who have servants do not usually wish to talk about their private matters before all the household, even though the private matters may be known; but this household was unlike all others in that respect. There was not a housemaid about the rooms or a groom in the stables who did not know how terrible a reprobate their master had been. "You will see your father before you go to bed?" Miss Scarborough said to her nephew as she left the room. "Certainly, if he will send to say that he wishes it."