“It is my name,” said Aubrey positively; for, as his father added, “He is not without dread of the threat being fulfilled, and himself left to be that Anon who, Blanche says, writes so much poetry.”
Aubrey privately went to Ethel, to ask her if this were possible; and she had to reassure him, by telling him that they were “only in fun.”
It was fun with a much deeper current though; for Dr. Spencer was saying, with a smile, between gratification and sadness, “I did not think my name would have been remembered here so long.”
“We had used up mine, and the grandfathers’, and the uncles’, and began to think we might look a little further a-field,” said Dr. May. “If I had only known where you were, I would have asked you to be the varlet’s godfather; but I was much afraid you were nowhere in the land of the living.”
“I have but one godson, and he is coffee-coloured! I ought to have written; but, you see, for seven years I thought I was coming home.”
Aubrey had recovered sufficiently to observe to Blanche, “That was almost as bad as Ulysses,” which, being overheard and repeated, led to the information that he was Ethel’s pupil, whereupon Dr. Spencer began to inquire after the school, and to exclaim at his friend for having deserted it in the person of Tom. Dr. May looked convicted, but said it was all Norman’s fault; and Dr. Spencer, shaking his head at Blanche, opined that the young gentleman was a great innovater, and that he was sure he was at the bottom of the pulling down the Market Cross, and the stopping up Randall’s Alley—iniquities of the “nasty people,” of which she already had made him aware.
“Poor Norman, he suffered enough anent Randall’s Alley,” said Dr. May; “but as to the Market Cross, that came down a year before he was born.”
“It was the Town Council!” said Ethel.
“One of the ordinary stultifications of Town Councils?”
“Take care, Spencer,” said Dr. May. “I am a Town Council man my-self—”