{1}
CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
CONTENTS
IN ALL SHADES.
DESERT DUST.
A GOLDEN ARGOSY.
THE MALDIVE ISLANDS.
HOW I BECAME A CONVICT.
WESTERN AUSTRALIA AS A SETTLEMENT.
No. 105.—Vol. III.
Price 1½d.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 2, 1886.
IN ALL SHADES.
By GRANT ALLEN,
Author of ‘Babylon,’ ‘Strange Stories,’ etc. etc.
CHAPTER I.
About one o’clock in the morning, by a flickeringfire of half-dead embers, young men of twenty-fiveare very apt to grow confidential. Now, itwas one o’clock gone, by the marble timepieceon Edward Hawthorn’s big mantel-shelf in King’sBench Walk, Temple; and Edward Hawthornand Harry Noel were each of them just twenty-five;so it is no matter for wonder at all thatthe conversation should just then have begunto take a very confidential turn indeed, especiallywhen one remembers that they had both nearlyfinished their warm glass of whisky toddy, andthat it was one of those chilly April eveningswhen you naturally cower close over the fireto keep your poor blood from curdling bodilyaltogether within you.
‘It’s certainly very odd, Noel, that my fathershould always seem so very anxious to keep mefrom going back to Trinidad, even for a mereshort visit.’
Harry Noel shook out the ashes from his pipeas he answered quietly: ‘Fathers are altogetherthe most unaccountable, incomprehensible, mysterious,and unmanageable of creatures. For myown part, I’ve given up attempting to fathomthem altogether.’
Edward smiled half deprecatingly. ‘Ah, butyou know, Noel,’ he went on in a far moreserious tone than his friend’s, ‘my father isn’tat all like that; he’s never refused me moneyor anything else I’ve wanted; he’s been themost liberal and the kindest of men to me; butfor some abstruse and inconceivable reason—Ican’t imagine why—he’s always opposed my goingback home even to visit him.’
‘If Sir Walter would only act upon the sameprinciple, my dear boy, I can tell you confidentiallyI’d be simply too delighted. Buthe always acts upon the exact contrary. He’sin favour of my coming down to the Hall inthe very dampest, dreariest, and dullest part ofall Lincolnshire, at the precise moment of timewhen I want myself to be off to Scotland, deer-stalkingor grouse-shooting; and he invariablyconsiders all my applications for extra coin asat least inopportune—as the papers say—if notas absolutely extravagant, or even criminal. Agovernor who