XV
Bobbie and Poetic Justice
They arrived by the 6.15 train as Henry had suggested—my brother Henry and his youngest son. "Suggested" struck me as being a rather inappropriate word to use for a visit at a bare day's notice, and the conventional phrase "if quite convenient to you" has a tinge of gratuitous insincerity when the letter containing it is delivered seven minutes after their train has left Paddington. But that is Henry all over. As a boy he was always anxious to share his broken toys with me and to assume an equal interest in the contents of my much better kept play-box. At school he was ready to take my part through thick and thin, but in return he seemed to expect me to throw myself unquestioningly on his side. On several occasions I plainly recognised that he was in the wrong, and I had to tell him so.
"I cannot conscientiously stick up for you in this," I would say; "but I shall not actively oppose you, because you are my brother."
There were periods of coldness between us, but no quarrels.
"Oh, all right, don't excite yourself about that; I can't help being your brother," was his usual retort; but once, I remember, the boy whose conduct I was actually approving took Henry's arm and walked off with him, throwing the word "Sneak!" over his shoulder. When, later in life, I came to my brother's assistance to the extent of five hundred pounds, at a rate of interest that was
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