"Listen, and stop me if I'm wrong. Within the last few days a great change has been at work within you. You are not the idle, thoughtless, mischievous boy who left here for his holidays——"
"No," said Paul, "I'll swear I'm not!"
"There is no occasion for such strong expressions. But, at all events, you come back here an altogether different being. Am I right in saying so?"
"Perfectly," said Paul, overjoyed at being so thoroughly understood, "perfectly. You're a very intelligent young man, sir. Shake hands. Why, I shouldn't be surprised, after that, if you knew how it all happened?"
"That too," said Mr. Blinkhorn smiling, "I can guess. It arose, I doubt not, in a wish?"
"Yes," cried Paul, "you've hit it again. You're a conjurer, sir, by Gad you are!"
"Don't say 'by Gad,' Bultitude; it's inconsistent. It began, I was saying, in a wish, half unconscious perhaps, to be something other than what you had been——"
"I was a fool," groaned Mr. Bultitude, "yes, that was the way it began!"
"Then insensibly the wish worked a gradual transformation in your nature (you are old enough to follow me?)."
"Old enough for him to follow me!" thought Paul; but he was too pleased to be annoyed. "Hardly gradual I should say," he said aloud. "But go on, sir, pray go on. I see you know all about it."