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"Old Si Radlett," as he was generally called, was something of a character in Millbay and its immediate neighbourhood, for, in addition to being admittedly the best builder of ships in all Devon, he was a bit of an eccentric, a man with bold and original ideas upon many subjects, a man of violent likes and dislikes, a bachelor, an exceedingly shrewd man of business, and some said a miser.
At this point Louis Bachelor swayed, and would have fallen, but that the bushranger's arms were thrown round him and helped him to a chair. "I'm afraid that I am ill," he said; "call Gongi. Ah!" He had fainted. The bushranger carried him to a bed, and summoned Gongi and the woman from the tavern, and in another hour was riding away through the valley of the Popri.
A bachelor is perhaps never in so great danger of being caught as when he has come to the conclusion that he sees perfectly through the mother's little game and merely means to amuse himself by carrying on a strictly guarded flirtation with the daughter.
Now it so happened that at the time of this son's birth there was residing as a guest at the Manor-house a middle-aged gentleman reputed to be very rich. His name was Amos Sutterby. Mr Huntingdon had met him abroad in the second year after his marriage when taking a tour in Switzerland with his wife. Mr Sutterby was an old bachelor, rather bluff in his manners, but evidently in easy circumstances.
On Sunday we went with the Comtesse de Salis and the Baronne de Salis, who is also Chanoinesse, but goes into the world in roses and pink ribbons nevertheless, and is very agreeable, moreover, and with M. Le Baron, an officer in the Swiss Guards, an old bachelor, to St. Sulpice, to hear M. Fressenus.
Then he went and took his examination in the country at a little college at Douai; it was easier, and he passed at last. M. de Courtalin has never been flunked; he is everything that one can be at his age: bachelor, advocate, lawyer, and grave, exact, and severe in his language, and dressed always in a black frock-coat, with two rows of buttons, always all buttoned in short, a man of the past.
It was a tidy, well-kept house, the house of a bachelor who had an eye to things himself and who was well served by competent servants. Hartley had reached the age of forty without having married, and he was solid of build and entirely sensible and practical of mind.
Some time after this another little episode of a similar nature happened, but this time Eliza was one of the victims. We had a near neighbour, an old bachelor, who had a fine patch of melons close at hand. Eliza and a cousin who was on a visit had had their eyes on them, and one day declared they were going that night to get some of Tom's melons.
'Yes, the pleasantest thing to me after working all day is an opera of Carini's, she said, in full accord with her taste, 'and Tellio for tenor, certainly. A fair enough sum for a bachelor: four hundred personal income, and a prospect of higher dividends to increase it; three hundred odd from his office, and no immediate prospects of an increase there; no one died there, no elderly martyr for the advancement of his juniors could be persuaded to die; they were too tough to think of retiring.
Which merely meant that, as he was a rich bachelor who had amassed money by exploiting the sentimental side of their sex, there would be a poetic justice in his chivalrously stepping into the breach and looking after his dead friend's helpless widow. It would make up for "the others," they said, and were enthusiastic over their sentimental plan.
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