Like the coachman he saw at a glance that Ernest was appointed
as though money were abundant with him, and that he was looking robust
and full of health and vigour.
This was not what he had bargained for. He wanted Ernest to return, but
he was to return as any respectable, well-regulated prodigal ought to
return--abject, broken-hearted, asking forgiveness from the tenderest and
most long-suffering father in the whole world. If he should have shoes
and stockings and whole clothes at all, it should be only because
absolute rags and tatters had been graciously dispensed with, whereas
here he was swaggering in a grey ulster and a blue and white necktie, and
looking better than Theobald had ever seen him in his life. It was
unprincipled. Was it for this that he had been generous enough to offer
to provide Ernest with decent clothes in which to come and visit his
mother's death-bed? Could any advantage be meaner than the one which
Ernest had taken? Well, he would not go a penny beyond the eight or nine
pounds which he had promised. It was fortunate he had given a limit. Why
he, Theobald, had never been able to afford such a portmanteau in his
life.
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