Tom sat silent while he listened to all this encouragement, turning his face from one speaker to the other. It was continued, with many other similar promises of coming happiness, and assurances that he had been a gainer in losing all that he had lost, when he suddenly turned sharply upon them, and strongly expressed his feelings to his sisters. "I don't believe that either of you know anything about it," he said.
"Don't know anything about what?" said Augusta, who, as a lady who had been married over twelve months and was soon about to become a mother, felt that she certainly did know all about it.
"Why don't we know as well as you?" asked, Gertrude, who had also had her experiences.
"I don't believe you do know anything about it -- that's all,"said Tom. "And now there's the cab. Goodbye, mother! Goodbye, Augusta. I hope you'll be all right." This alluded to the baby.
"Goodbye, Gertrude. I hope you'll get all right too some day."This alluded to Gertrude's two lovers. Then he left them, and as he got into his cab declared to himself that neither of them had ever, or would ever, know anything of that special trouble which had so nearly overwhelmed himself.
"Upon my word, Tom," said his father, walking about the vessel with him, "I wish I were going to New York myself with you --it all looks so comfortable."
"Yes," said Tom, "it's very nice."
"You'll enjoy yourself amazingly. There is that Mrs Thompson has two as pretty daughters with her as ever a man wished to see." Tom shook his head. "And you're fond of smoking. Did you see the smoking-room? They've got everything on board these ships now. Upon my word I envy you the voyage.""It's as good as anything else, I dare say," said Tom. "Perhaps it's better than London."Then his father, who had been speaking aloud to him, whispered a word in his ear. "Shake yourself, Tom -- shake yourself, and get over it.""I am trying," said Tom.
"Love is a very good thing, Tom, when a man can enjoy it, and make himself warm with it, and protect himself by it from selfishness and hardness of heart. But when it knocks a man's courage out of him, and makes him unfit for work, and leaves him to bemoan himself, there's nothing good in it. It's as bad as drink. Don't you know that I am doing the best I can for you, to make a man of you?""I suppose so."
"Then shake yourself, as I call it. It is to be done, if you set about it in earnest. Now, God bless you, my boy." Then Sir Thomas got into his boat, and left his son to go upon his travels and get himself cured by a change of scene.
I have no doubt that Tom was cured, if not before he reached New York, at any rate before he left that interesting city --so that when he reached Niagara, which he did do in company with Mrs Thompson and her charming daughters, he entertained no idea of throwing himself down the Falls. We cannot follow him on that prolonged tour to Japan and China, and thence to Calcutta and Bombay. I fancy that he did not go on to Kabul, as before that time the Ministry in England was unfortunately changed, and the Russians had not as yet been expelled from Asia -- but I have little doubt that he obtained a great deal of very useful mercantile information, and that he will live to have a comfortable wife and a large family, and become in the course of years the senior partner in the great house of Travers and Treason. Let us, who have soft hearts, now throw our old shoes after him.
1 It has to be stated that this story was written in 1878.