I'm too much your son to love
any woman long when I have learned to despise her. I came home to
apologize, and to place myself under your orders, if you will forgive me,
and find something useful for me to do."
"So I will, my boy; there's my hand. Now out with it. What did you go
away for, since it wasn't a petticoat?"
"Well, sir, I am afraid I shall offend you."
"Not a bit of it, after I've given you my hand. Come, now, what was it?"
Walter pondered and hesitated, but at last hit upon a way to explain.
"Sir," said he, "until I was six years old they used to give me peaches
from Oddington House; but one fine day the supply stopped, and I uttered
a small howl to my nurse. Old John heard me, and told me Oddington was
sold, house, garden, estate, and all."
Colonel Clifford snorted.
Walter resumed, modestly but firmly:
"I was thirteen; I used to fish in a brook that ran near Drayton Park.
One day I was fishing there, when a brown velveteen chap stopped me, and
told me I was trespassing. 'Trespassing?' said I.
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