"Any fool but you could see that I'm growing weaker every hour, both in mind and body," he said; but the truth was that everything pointed in the opposite direction. His appetite for solids improved, he slept less by day, he began to "take notice" when people called, and showed little gleams of returning memory. To my bitter regret he gave up going to church, and resumed the habit of smoking tobacco. He tried one of his old, favourite "churchwarden" clay pipes, but it was a failure, and he told me next morning with delight that the thing had been too much for him.
"That's a sign I'm growing older, anyhow," he declared. But he was not. I could see the early dawn of middle-age already creeping back over him, and sick at heart it made me.
I pass rapidly to his hundred-and-first birthday, upon which anniversary there was a scene--the beginning of a series. My friend Mrs. Hopkins called to drink tea. She has a good heart and always tries to please people. We have known one another for many years, and she has no secrets from me. She called, and ate, and drank, and, in her cheery way, congratulated grandpapa upon his appearance.
"Positively, Mr. Dolphin, you grow younger instead of older. You don't look a day more than ninety, and I doubt if you feel as much," she said, very kindly.
"Bah! Stuff and rubbish, woman! I feel a thousand and look more. Don't talk twaddle like that. It makes me sick. Personal remarks are always common, and I'm sorry you can allow yourself to sink to 'em."
Then he went out of the room in a pet, and I saw that he hobbled away quite easily without using his walking sticks at all.
"Lor, Martha!" said Mrs. Hopkins. "What corn have I trod on now? I thought the old gentleman would have been pleased."
I explained that grandfather felt very keenly about his age, and did not like people to imagine that he looked any younger than was in reality the case.
But when she went away, he came down again and dared me to bring any more old women in to snigger and make jokes at his expense, as he angrily put it.
"And another thing," said grandfather, "you can give Jane and the cook warning, and see about sub-letting the house. I'm leaving Ealing at the quarter-day. Here's half a column about me and my wonderful age in the West Middlesex County Times. I'm not going to make a curiosity and a raree show of myself in this place for you or anybody. They'll have me at Tussaud's Waxworks next. We clear out of this on June 24. I'm going back to town."