“Lord bless you!” said I, “I don’t look so old.”
“I repeat it,” said he, “you might be a hundred and forty-two, and not know a whit more about them.”
“Here we are,” thought I, “back on the monomania.”
“You may smile,” said he, “it was an ungenerous insinuation. Nothing was farther from my thoughts; but it’s true,—they require the study of a lifetime. Talk of Law or Physic or Divinity; it’s child’s play, sir. Now, you thought that young girl was asleep.”
“Why, she certainly looked so.”
“Looked so,” said he, with a sneer; “what do I look like? Do I look like a man of sense or intelligence?”
“I protest,” said I, cautiously, “I won’t suffer myself to be led away by appearances; I would not wish to be unjust to you.”
“Well, sir, that artful young woman’s deception of you has preyed upon me ever since; I was going on to Walmer to-night, but I could n’t leave this without seeing you once more, and giving you a caution.”
“Dear me. I thought nothing about it. You took the matter too much to heart.”
“Too much to heart,” said he, with a bitter sneer; “that’s the cant that deceives half the world. If men, sir, instead of undervaluing these small and apparently trivial circumstances, would but recall their experiences, chronicle their facts, as Bacon recommended so wisely, we should possess some safe data to go upon, in our estimate of that deceitful sex.”