He went into his slovenly bedroom, and took out one of his razors, and
felt the corrugated surface of the left side of his neck meditatively.
But the razor was blunt, and the corrugated surface seemed very tough and
unmanageable; so George Sheldon decided that this kind of operation was
an affair which might be deferred.
He heard the next day that his brother was _non est_, and, in his own
phraseology, that there was a pretty kettle of fish in the City.
"Upon my word, Phil and I seem to have brought our pigs to a very nice
market," he said. "I dare say, wherever that fellow has gone, he has
carried a well-lined purse with him. But I wouldn't have his conscience
for all the wealth of the Rothschilds. It's bad enough to see Tom
Halliday's face as I see it sometimes. What must it be to _him_?"
A little more than a year after this, and the yellow corn was waving on
the fertile plains of Normandy, fruit ripening in orchards on hillside
and in valley; merry holiday folks splashing and dabbling in the waves
that wash the yellow sands of Dieppe; horses coming to grief in Norman
steeplechases; desperate gamesters losing their francs and half-francs in
all kinds of frivolous games in the Dieppe _etablissement_; and yonder,
in the heart of Normandy, beyond the tall steeples of Rouen, a happy
family assembled at the Chateau Cotenoir.
One happy family--two happy families rather, but so closely united by the
bonds of love and friendship as to seem indeed one.
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