"Don't tell me; Watty was an inch and a half over you, and much broader in the chest. I think I ought to know; he has thrown me scores of times wrestling, and I suspect it would puzzle _you_ to do it." Tony's face flushed; he made no answer, but in his heart of hearts he 'd like to have had a trial.
Perhaps the great man expected some confirmation of his opinion, or perhaps he had his own doubts about its soundness; but, whatever the reason, his voice was more peevish as he said: "I have read your mother's note, but for the life of me I cannot see what it points to. What has become of your father's fortune? He had something, surely."
"Yes, sir, he had a younger son's portion, but he risked it in a speculation--some mines in Canada--and lost it."
"Ay, and dipped it too by extravagance! There's no need to tell me how he lived; there wasn't so wasteful a fellow in the regiment; he 'd have exactly what he pleased, and spend how he liked. And what has it come to? ay, that's what I ask,--what has it come to? His wife comes here with this petition--for it is a petition--asking--I 'll be shot if I know what she asks."
"Then I 'll tell you," burst in Tony; "she asks the old brother-officer of her husband--the man who in his letters called himself his brother--to befriend his son, and there's nothing like a petition in the whole of it."
"What! what! what! This is something I 'm not accustomed to! You want to make friends, young man, and you must not begin by outraging the very few who might chance to be well disposed towards you."
Tony stood abashed and overwhelmed, his cheeks on fire with shame, but he never uttered a word.
"I have very little patronage," said Sir Harry, drawing himself up and speaking in a cold, measured tone; "the colonies appoint their own officials, with a very few exceptions. I could make you a bishop or an attorney-general, but I could n't make you a tide-waiter! What can you do? Do you write a good hand?"
"And of course you know nothing of French or German?"
"A little French; not a word of German, sir."
"I'd be surprised if you did. It is always when a fellow has utterly neglected his education that he comes to a Government for a place. The belief apparently is that the State supports a large institution of incapables, eh?"