"Hem!" answered the grave Christopher, in a tone that struck me as somewhat nervous and uneasy, "you are become quite a humourist since we parted. I suppose you have been warming your wit by the lambent fires of Horace and Aristophanes!"
"No," said I, "the living allow those whose toilsome lot it is to mix constantly with them, but little time to study the monuments of the dead. But, in sober earnest, are you as happy as I wish you?"
Clutterbuck looked down for a moment, and then, turning towards the table, laid one hand upon a MS., and pointed with the other to his books. "With this society," said he, "how can I be otherwise?"
I gave him no reply, but put my hand upon his MS. He made a modest and coy effort to detain it, but I knew that writers were like women, and making use of no displeasing force, I possessed myself of the paper.
It was a treatise on the Greek participle. My heart sickened within me; but, as I caught the eager glance of the poor author, I brightened up my countenance into an expression of pleasure, and appeared to read and comment upon the difficiles nugae with an interest commensurate to his own. Meanwhile the youth returned. He had much of that delicacy of sentiment which always accompanies mental cultivation, of whatever sort it may be. He went, with a scarlet blush over his thin face, to his uncle, and whispered something in his ear, which, from the angry embarrassment it appeared to occasion, I was at no loss to divine.
"Come," said I, "we are too long acquainted for ceremony. Your placens uxor, like all ladies in the same predicament, thinks your invitation a little unadvised; and, in real earnest, I have so long a ride to perform, that I would rather eat your oysters another day!"
"No, no," said Clutterbuck, with greater eagerness than his even temperament was often hurried into betraying—"no, I will go and reason with her myself. 'Wives, obey your husbands,' saith the preacher!" And the quondam senior wrangler almost upset his chair in the perturbation with which he arose from it.
I laid my hand upon him. "Let me go myself," said I, "since you will have me dine with you. 'The sex is ever to a stranger kind,' and I shall probably be more persuasive than you, in despite of your legitimate authority."
So saying, I left the room, with a curiosity more painful than pleasing, to see the collegian's wife. I arrested the man servant, and ordered him to usher and announce me.
I was led instanter into the apartment where I had discovered all the signs of female inquisitiveness, which I have before detailed. There I discovered a small woman, in a robe equally slatternly and fine, with a sharp pointed nose, small, cold, grey eyes, and a complexion high towards the cheek bones, but waxing of a light green before it reached the wide and querulous mouth, which, well I ween, seldom opened to smile upon the unfortunate possessor of her charms. She, like the Rev. Christopher, was not without her companions; a tall meagre woman, of advanced age, and a girl, some years younger than herself, were introduced to me as her mother and sister.