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Pecuniarily his position was much improved; his uncle had kept his word, and put an allowance at his disposal which made him tolerably easy about his future. He removed to more fashionable quarters in South Audley Street, and led the easy existence there he had long coveted. Still Mr. Lightowler was an unpleasantly constant bluebottle in his ointment.
And it cuts me to the heart to think that a son of mine should place another stumbling-block in the hands of youth. 'Stumbling grandmother! cried Mr. Lightowler. 'In our young days, as you say, we didn't go to playhouses, and only read good and improving books, and a dull time we 'ad of it! I don't read novels myself now, having other things to think about.
Lightowler, said the other, turning round with a rather ugly snarl. 'I 'eard you, replied Uncle Solomon, calmly, 'that was why I spoke. Come, come, 'Umpage, don't be nasty we've been neighbours long enough to drop nagging.
Humpage complied, and when he finished for the second time, his hearer's face was purple and distorted, and Mabel pitied him from her own experience. 'Dear Mr. Lightowler, she said, 'you mustn't blame Mark; he had no choice, he had promised. 'Promised! Uncle Solomon almost howled; 'what business had he got to make a promise like that?
Her husband, without any very clear views of his own, thought as she did as soon as he knew her opinions, and they all left it to Mr. Lightowler to interpret the 'evident sense of the house.
'I may have acted on imperfect knowledge, she said; 'I may have been too hasty in concluding that Mark had only written some worldly and frivolous love-tale to keep minds from dwelling on higher subjects. If so, I'm willing to own it, and if Mark was to come to me But Mr. Lightowler did not care to lose his monopoly of magnanimity in this way.
'Warm! said Mr. Lightowler, with a snort; 'I should think you must all of you be fired like a set of pots! I don't care where I sit, so long as I'm well away from the fire. I'll come by you, Trixie, eh you'll take care of your uncle, won't you?
'This is a book which is 'aving a large sale just now: we've sold as many as' but here Mark succeeded in getting Vincent away and bringing him up to Mr. Lightowler. 'How are you, sir? began that gentleman, with a touch of condescension in his manner. 'So it's only you that's goin' off?
Lightowler opened his drooping eyelids: 'There's some one in my garden, he said. 'I must go out and put a stop to that some of those urchins out of the village they're always at it! He put on an old garden-hat and sallied out, followed by Mark: 'The voices seem to come down from 'Umpage's way, but there's no one to be seen, he said, as they went along.
'Umpage, there's been no worse poison given to it than some of my old Glenlivat, said Mr. Lightowler; 'and, let me tell you, it's not every man, let alone every gander, as gets the luck to taste that. It's welcome as the flowers in May to it, only don't blame me if your bird is laid up with a bad 'eadache by-and-by, not that there's an 'eadache in the whole cask.
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