Ah, Barnabas!"
sighed his father shaking his head at him, "you was a promising
infant, likewise a promising bye; me an' Natty Bell had great hopes
of ye, Barnabas; if you'd been governed by me and Natty Bell you
might ha' done us all proud in the Prize Ring. You was cut out for
the 'Fancy.' Why, Lord! you might even ha' come to be Champion o'
England in time--you 're the very spit o' what I was when I beat
the Fighting Quaker at Dartford thirty years ago."
"But you see, father--"
"That was why me an' Natty Bell took you in hand--learned you all
we knowed o' the game--an' there aren't a fighting man in all
England as knows so much about the Noble Art as me an' Natty Bell."
"But father--"
"If you 'd only followed your nat'ral gifts, Barnabas, I say you
might ha' been Champion of England to-day, wi' Markisses an' Lords
an' Earls proud to shake your hand--if you'd only been ruled by
Natty Bell an' me, I'm disappointed in ye, Barnabas--an' so's Natty
Bell."
"I'm sorry, father--but as I told you--"
"Still Barnabas, what ain't to be, ain't--an' what is, is. Some is
born wi' a nat'ral love o' the 'Fancy' an' gift for the game, like
me an' Natty Bell--an' some wi' a love for reading out o' books an'
a-cyphering into books--like you: though a reader an' a writer
generally has a hard time on it an' dies poor--which, arter all, is
only nat'ral--an' there y' are!"
Here John Barty paused to take up the tankard of ale at his elbow,
and pursed up his lips to blow off the foam, but in that moment,
observing his son about to speak, he immediately set down the ale
untasted and continued:
"Not as I quarrels wi' your reading and writing, Barnabas, no, and
because why? Because reading and writing is apt to be useful now an'
then, and because it were a promise--as I made--to--your mother.
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