‘The question’s fair,’ he said; ‘the question’s fair—pairfectly fair, Paul. I misliked the manner of it, but the question’s fair.’
‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said Paul.
He could have knelt to him.
‘They’ll be having Tennyson at the Institute Library?’ the old man asked. ‘I’ll walk over for him.’
‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said Paul, ‘but Tennyson——’
‘Ay, ay!’ said Armstrong, ‘age fossilizes. It’s like enough the man has a word to say. I’ll look at him.’
He took his rusty old silk hat from its hook beside the eight-day clock, and went out quietly.
For the first minute in his life Paul truly loved him.
‘It would ha’served me right,’ he mourned, ‘if he’d ha’ knocked me down. It’s a lot better as it is, though; but it’s hard to bear.’
That afternoon, and for many a morning and afternoon for months, old Armstrong shuffled swiftly along the weedy garden, and took his seat on the upturned box beside the stove, and there studied his Tennyson and smoked his pipe. These were halcyon days for Paul, for the old man was not long obdurate, and began to halve the delight of his own reading.