Clutterbuck was standing, with his back towards me, upon a pair of library steps, turning over some dusky volumes; and below stood a pale, cadaverous youth, with a set and serious countenance, that bore no small likeness to Clutterbuck himself.
"Mon Dieu," thought I, "he cannot have made such good use of his matrimonial state as to have raised this lanky impression of himself in the space of seven months?" The good man turned round and almost fell off the steps with the nervous shock of beholding me so near him: he descended with precipitation, and shook me so warmly and tightly by the hand, that he brought tears into my eyes, as well as his own.
"Gently, my good friend," said I—"parce precor, or you will force me to say, 'ibimus una ambo, flentes valido connexi foedere.'"
Clutterbuck's eyes watered still more, when he heard the grateful sounds of what to him was the mother tongue. He surveyed me from head to foot with an air of benign and fatherly complacency, and dragging forth from its sullen rest a large arm chair, on whose cushions of rusty horse-hair sat an eternal cloud of classic dust, too sacred to be disturbed, he plumped me down upon it, before I was aware of the cruel hospitality.
"Oh! my nether garments," thought I. "Quantus sudor incrit Bedoso, to restore you to your pristine purity."
"But, whence come you?" said my host, who cherished rather a formal and antiquated method of speech.
"From the Pythian games," said I. "The campus hight Newmarket. Do I see right, or is not yon insignis juvenis marvellously like you? Of a surety he rivals the Titans, if he is only a seven months' child!"
"Now, truly, my worthy friend," answered Clutterbuck, "you indulge in jesting! The boy is my nephew, a goodly child, and a painstaking. I hope he will thrive at our gentle mother. He goes to Trinity next October. Benjamin Jeremiah, my lad, this is my worthy friend and benefactor, of whom I have often spoken; go, and order him of our best—he will partake of our repast!"
"No, really," I began; but Clutterbuck gently placed the hand, whose strength of affection I had already so forcibly experienced, upon my mouth. "Pardon me, my friend," said he. "No stranger should depart till he had broken bread with us, how much more then a friend! Go, Benjamin Jeremiah, and tell your aunt that Mr. Pelham will dine with us; and order, furthermore, that the barrel of oysters sent unto us as a present, by my worthy friend Dr. Swallow'em, be dressed in the fashion that seemeth best; they are a classic dainty, and we shall think of our great masters the ancients whilst we devour them. And—stop, Benjamin Jeremiah, see that we have the wine with the black seal; and—now—go, Benjamin Jeremiah!"
"Well, my old friend," said I, when the door closed upon the sallow and smileless nephew, "how do you love the connubiale jugum? Do you give the same advice as Socrates? I hope, at least, it is not from the same experience."