"Benson, Edward Frederic - The Blotting Book" - читать интересную книгу автора (Benson Edward Frederic)

"I hate port," he said, "but my mother tells me this is all right. It was laid
down the year I was born by the way. You don't mind my smoking do you?"
This, to tell the truth, seemed almost sacrilegious to Mr. Taynton, for the idea
that tobacco, especially the frivolous cigarette, should burn in a room where
such port was being drunk was sheer crime against human and divine laws. But he
could scarcely indicate to his host that he should not smoke in his own
dining-room.
"No, my dear Morris," he said, "but really you almost shock me, when you prefer
tobacco to this nectar, I assure you nectar. And the car, now, tell me more
about the car."
Morris laughed.
"I 'm so deeply thankful I have n't overdrawn," he said. "Oh, the car's a
clipper. We came down from Haywards Heath the most gorgeous pace. I saw one
policeman trying to take my number, but we raised such a dust, I don't think he
can have been able to see it. It 's such rot only going twenty miles an hour
with a clear straight road ahead."
Mr. Taynton sighed, gently and not unhappily.
"Yes, yes, my dear boy, I so sympathise with you," he said. "Speed and violence
is the proper attitude of youth, just as strength with a more measured pace is
the proper gait for older folk. And that, I fancy is just what Mrs. Assheton
felt. She would feel it to be as unnatural in you to care to drive with her in
her very comfortable victoria as she would feel it to be unnatural in herself to
wish to go in your lightning speed motor. And that reminds me. As your
trusteeЧЧ"
Coffee was brought in at this moment, carried, not by one of the discreet
parlour-maids, but by a young man-servant. Mr. Taynton, with the port still by
him, refused it, but looked rather curiously at the servant. Morris however
mixed himself a cup in which cream, sugar, and coffee were about equally
mingled.
"A new servant of your mother's?" he asked, when the man had left the room.
"Oh no. It 's my man, Martin. Awfully handy chap. Cleans silver, boots and the
motor. Drives it, too, when I 'll let him, which is n't very often. Chauffeurs
are such rotters, are n't they? Regular chauffeurs I mean. They always make out
that something is wrong with the car, just as dentists always find some hole in
your teeth, if you go to them."
Mr. Taynton did not reply to these critical generalities but went back to what
he had been saying when the entry of coffee interrupted him.
"As your mother said," he remarked, "I wanted to have a few words with you. You
are twenty-two, are you not, to-day? Well, when I was young we considered anyone
of twenty-two a boy still, but now I think young fellows grow up more quickly,
and at twenty-two, you are a man nowadays, and I think it is time for you, since
my trusteeship for you may end any day now, to take a rather more active
interest in the state of your finances than you have hitherto done. I want you
in fact, my dear fellow, to listen to me for five minutes while I state your
position to you."
Morris indicated the port again, and Mr. Taynton refilled his glass.
"I have had twenty years of stewardship for you," he went on, "and before my
stewardship comes to an end, which it will do anyhow in three years from now,
and may come to an end any dayЧЧ"
"Why, how is that?" asked Morris.