"What's that you're saying about me, Mr. Dibb?" Mr. Pringle would ask from over the top of his desk.
"Says you take three-quarters of an hour for your lunch," would repeat the revengeful Boppy.
"All right! better do that than make yourself a wretched hypochondriac, like some people. Let digestion wait on appetite, and health on both, Boppy! Mr. Dibb's got none of the three; doesn't know what any of them mean; so we must excuse him." And then Mr. Boppy would get his leave, and go away and do dismal duty with his relatives.
Nor was Mr. Pringle in any thing like his usual flow of spirits. He was very mercurial, tremendously affected by the weather; and black skies, cold winds, and empty streets sent him down to zero. Moreover his other-half, his chum, his bosom-friend, Mr. Prescott, was away on leave, paying his long-promised visit to old Mr. Murray of Brooklands; and so Mr. Pringle was left to himself, and sat in his chambers smoking solitary pipes, and learning whole pages of the Comic Song-Book, and perpetually falling asleep over the first page of the volume of Boswell's Life of Johnson. For Mr. Kinchenton, who took great interest in honest George, had told him that no man was worth any thing unless he read something besides trashy novels and Little Warblers; and Mr. Pringle, determining to "go-in for something heavy," had selected the life of Dr. Johnson, whose Rasselas he had read as a child, remembering it as "the adventures of a young cove and an old cove, with a doosid good bit about a bridge, or something, in it." Moreover George Pringle was by no means comfortable as to the state of his friend's money-matters. He had himself "ignored," as he phrased it, all his own transactions with Scadgers; but he was in with Prescott on one bill, and he knew that his friend had involved himself with several other pieces of stamped paper in the hands of the same worthy. And George had a strange notion that some of these were overdue; and knowing that the Long Vacation was rapidly drawing to a close, and that Term-time was coming on, he feared that the mighty engines of the law might be set to work, and come a general smash. He had written to Prescott about it; but had only received a couple of lines in reply, to say that he was very jolly, and that the things would be all right; so that all he could do was patiently to await his friend's return to town.
That happened one night, when Pringle and Boswell had had a severe disagreement, and Pringle had let Boswell drop into the fender, and had gone to sleep with his pipe in the corner of his mouth. There came a heavy bang at the oak, and Pringle, starting up and opening it, found himself face to face with James Prescott,--rosy, stout, jolly, and beaming, with a big portmanteau in his hand.
"Hallo! old man!"
"Hallo! old man! been asleep, eh? lazy old beggar! wanted me to rouse you up! give us a hand to the portmanteau, George, and help him in! that's it! Well," taking off his coat and making a dive at his friend, and catching him by the shoulders, and peering inquiringly into his face, "and how goes it? what's the news? how are all the buffers at the shop? any body dead? any body got the sack? no promotion? always our luck!"
"Things are much the same, I think; no news any where; they'll be glad to see you back, for they've been grumbling about the work--not that you'll be much help at that, though. And what have you been doing? had a good time?"
"Good time? stunning!" and Mr. Prescott kissed his fingers and waved them in the air. "Never put in such a time in my life. Old boy was splendaceous, did every mortal thing one wanted,--good nag to ride, good shooting, capital cellar, let you smoke where you like--no end! My old governor was there too, as happy as a bird!"
"And the young lady--Miss Murray?"