Deeply grieving over this disaster, Billy Traynor hastened from the spot, but he had only reached the garden of the Chiaja when he heard a faint, weak voice calling him by his name; he turned, and saw Sir Horace Upton, who, seated in a sort of portable arm-chair, was enjoying the fresh air from the sea.
“Quite a piece of good fortune to meet you, Doctor,” said he, smiling; “neither you nor your pupil have been near me for ten days or more.”
“'Tis our own loss then, your Excellency,” said Billy, bowing; “even a chance few minutes in your company is like whetting the intellectual razor,—I feel myself sharper for the whole day after.”
“Then why not come oftener, man? Are you afraid of wearing the steel all away?”
“'T is more afraid I am of gapping the fine edge of your Excellency by contact with my own ruggedness,” said Billy, obsequiously.
“You were intended for a courtier, Doctor,” said Sir Horace, smiling.
“If there was such a thing as a court fool nowadays, I'd look for the place.”
“The age is too dull for such a functionary. They'll not find ten men in any country of Europe equal to the office,” said Sir Horace. “One has only to see how lamentably dull are the journals dedicated to wit and drollery, to admit this fact; though written by many hands, how rare it is to chance upon what provokes a laugh. You 'll have fifty metaphysicians anywhere before you 'll hit on one Molière. Will you kindly open that umbrella for me? This autumnal sun, they say, gives sunstroke. And now what do you think of this boy? He'll not make a diplomatist, that's clear.”
“He 'll not make anything,—just for one simple reason, because he could be whatever he pleased.”
“An intellectual spendthrift,” sighed Sir Horace “What a hopeless bankruptcy it leads to!”