ON THE VANITY OF OLD AGE
I met an old gentleman, a handsome and vigorous old gentleman, with whom I have a slight acquaintance, in the lane this morning, and he asked me whether I remembered Walker of The Daily News. No, said I, he was before my time. He resigned the editorship, I thought, in the 'seventies.
“Before that,” said the old gentleman. “Must have been in the 'sixties.”
“Probably,” I said. “Did you know him in the 'sixties?”
“Oh, I knew him before then,” said the old gentleman, warming to his subject. “I knew him in the 'forties.”
I took a step backwards in respectful admiration. The old gentleman enjoyed this instinctive testimony to the impression he had made.
“Heavens!” said I, “the 'forties!”
“No,” said the old gentleman, half closing his eyes, as if to get a better view across the ages. “No.... It must have been in the 'thirties.... Yes, it was in the 'thirties. We were boys at school together in the 'thirties. We called him Sawney Walker.”
I fell back another step. The old gentleman's triumph was complete. I had paid him the one compliment that appealed to him—the compliment of astonished incredulity at the splendour of his years.