"So do I," says Mr. Binney heartily. "There was a time when I should have been jealous of him. But that is all over and done with. I've put such things behind me. Here am I, settled down comfortably with a devoted and charming wife. I can take life gratefully now as it comes, and be just as proud of my boy distinguishing himself as if I had done it myself."
"That's the way to look at it, Peter," says Mrs. Binney. "We made a mistake in thinking it was necessary for you to go to Cambridge in order to keep young. It's love that keeps the heart young, and so we've found, haven't we?"
"Indeed we have, Martha," says Mr. Binney. "Ah! Shall I ever forget what you did for me in that dark time of illness and remorse? Shall I ever forget reaching home that morning, racked with anguish at the thought of the ingratitude I had displayed towards my noble-hearted son, and the remembrance of the awful punishment I had received for my rash folly? How I sat indoors brooding over the past, feeling wretched and miserable, without hope or comfort. How the next day I was too ill to get up, and by night time was mercifully beyond the reach of my remorseful thoughts, because of the severe attack of pneumonia, which the exposure and distress I had gone through had brought on. How I lay for days, tossing and burning on a couch of misery, and woke at last to find your cool hand stilling the throbbing of my burning brain, and your angel voice falling in words of balm on my distressed and fevered spirit.
"Yes, dear," says his wife as Mr. Binney pauses for breath, "and then you soon got better, didn't you?"
"Shall I ever forget," pursues Mr. Binney more energetically than ever, "how, when I came again to the realisation of all the many follies I had committed, you soothed and consoled me, how you brought my boy to me, and neither of you would listen to my broken cries of repentance, but gave me calves' foot jelly and grapes instead, and insisted upon carrying on a cheerful conversation? How you brought me the news of my success in the Little-go, which was greater than I deserved, but less than I expected; and finally, Martha, how you made me the happy man I am to-day by promising to become mine when I had sufficiently recovered, on the condition that I should leave Cambridge and settle down once more to my business."
"Yes, dear, and now we're all comfortable and happy," says Mrs. Binney. "I made mistakes too, Peter, as well as you, but they're all over now. And——"
"Well, Mrs. Binney," interrupts a well-known voice, "this is something like, eh? I don't know whether you know that if you've got any microbes or things of that sort in your system a wind like this blows 'em all away."
"I didn't know it, Mr. Stubbs," says Mrs. Binney, with a pleasant smile. "But I have no doubt the wind is a very good thing if only it wouldn't blow all one's hair about one's face so?"
"Ah, dear lady!" says Dizzy, "you may consider yourself lucky you've got any hair to be blown about. Now look at the top of my old pepper-box. I haven't had to use a comb for a year, and I shall soon be able to part my hair with a towel. You wouldn't like to be like that, would you?"
"No," says Mrs. Binney. "But you are very young to be going so bald, Mr. Stubbs. What do you attribute it to?"