"But what about all this? Do you intend to leave it so? And—you're off somewhere?"
"Only to York on a little matter of business," replied Arthur, who had turned to the mirror, and was occupying himself in imparting a certain air of fascination to the set of his budding moustache. "I must get the old woman here—a motherly body in her way, and useful when a fellow can get out of reach of her tongue—to finish for me. Yes, that's decidedly the best plan. Come along, Mac! If my coming of age is worthy of being made a festival, certainly your breaking loose from that rascal—whose whining is enough to sicken the healthiest person—is trebly so. We must have a bottle of champagne and a general jollification on the strength of it; then we can go to Golding's together, and after that I shall still have time to catch the afternoon mail."
"I didn't know you had friends in York."
"Did I say I had friends there?"
"No, but what can your business be? I always thought it consisted in carrying out and bringing to a successful end a rather laborious system of amusement."
"Come, Mac, don't be severe. I'm turning over a new leaf, and am fast becoming a most useful member of society. I have already two pictures, a score of elaborate novels, a series of scientific works and books of travel innumerable in my eye."
"As your own performance or your neighbor's?"
"My own, of course. Do you mean to be insulting, Mac, or have you fallen so low as to imagine a solicitor's office the only path to fame? But don't apologize, old fellow; I forgive you in consideration of a certain derangement of brain, the result, no doubt, of your late experiences."
"What have you been doing to yourself, Forrest?" The young man looked at his friend with some curiosity. Arthur's face was flushed and his eyes were beaming with excitement. "Your spirits have been at rather a low ebb whenever I have had the opportunity of seeing you lately; now they are perfectly exuberant. I think there must be something more in this visit to York than is quite apparent to the casual observer. Blushing, too! Why, old fellow, I thought your blushing days were over long ago, like mine."
Arthur turned away in some impatience: "Don't be absurd, Mac, or I shall certainly be cross, and at present I feel generally genial—sympathetic, as I shall remark in my first novel, with the sweet influences of the balmy breezes. By the bye, that would be rather neat, wouldn't it?"