Read "Interference, Volume II" by B. M. Croker online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
George Holroyd's leave to England had borne but faint resemblance to the plan he had sketched out, as he steamed homewards, with his mind full of anticipations of sport, and amusement, and his pockets full of money. It is true that he had had some capital hunting (thanks to Clancy's grey, who was now in a racing stable), but his shooting and fishing projects, his visits to race-courses, his trip on the Continent, were still so many castles in the air. He was returning all but penniless, minus new clothes, new saddlery, a new battery of guns -- minus his money, and, above all, minus his heart. What had he to show for his eight months' tour to Europe? One badly executed photograph -- a cheap little silver brooch, and a withered flower, but these he valued beyond all price!
On the passage out, he was a dull enough companion, and took a very subordinate interest in smoking concerts, whist, or theatricals, and no interest whatever in various well-favoured young ladies; no, he paced the deck in solitude, revolving plans that might tend to his getting his foot upon the ladder that leads to good things and lofty positions, _i.e._, "the staff. " He must study the language in earnest, and pass the Higher Standard, so as to be eligible for an appointment that would give him an increase of pay, and enable him to make a home that would not be quite unworthy of Betty.