stocks these four years, and that launching process you talk of looks just
as remote as ever. No, no; let us be fair; he has all the right on his
side, all the wrong is on mine. Indeed, so far as conscience goes, I have
always felt it so, but one's conscience, like one's boots, gets so pliant
from wear, that it ceases to give pain. Still, on my honour, I never
hip-hurraed to a toast that I did not feel: there goes broken boots to one
of the boys, or, worse again, the cost of a cotton dress for one of the
sisters. Whenever I took a sherry-cobbler I thought of suicide after it.
Self-indulgence and self-reproach got linked in my nature so inseparably,
it was hopeless to summon one without the other, till at last I grew to
believe it was very heroic in me to deny myself nothing, seeing how sorry I
should be for it afterwards. But come, old fellow, don't lose your evening;
we'll have time enough to talk over these things--where are you going?'

'To the Clancys'.'

'To he sure; what a fellow I am to forget it was Letty's birthday, and I
was to have brought her a bouquet! Dick, be a good fellow and tell her
some lie or other--that I was sick in bed, or away to see an aunt or a
grandmother, and that I had a splendid bouquet for her, but wouldn't let
it reach her through other hands than my own, but to-morrow--to-morrow she
shall have it.'

'You know well enough you don't mean anything of the sort.'

'On my honour, I'll keep my promise. I've an old silver watch yonder--I
think it knows the way to the pawn-office by itself. There, now be off, for
if I begin to think of all the fun you're going to, I shall just dress and
join you.'