"I'd brighten him if I had the power," growled the gracious host. "He ought to be under the turf with his confounded generation, or in the workhouse. I don't see any use for such a stiff-jointed old skeleton being above ground."
"He is eighty," said Mr. Leigh, placidly. "Great age. A comfortable room this, Mr. Mallien; there is something of the sybarite about you."
"Don't call names, vicar. The room is less like a pig sty than yours, and that is the best to be said about it."
"I often wonder, Mr. Mallien, that with your bringing up, you have not learned better manners," said Leigh, putting on his pince-nez and blinking. "You are certainly a most ill-conducted person. You should marry, and see if the softening influence of the feminine nature----"
Mallien turned from a cupboard of black oak, in which he was rummaging, and answered viciously. "I have been married."
"Dear me," mused the vicar, as if aware of this for the first time, "so you have been. And how is Miss Dorinda?"
"I believe his wits are going," grumbled Mallien to himself: then raised his voice. "She's busy, and can't waste her time in seeing you. Here"--he flung a heavy sheaf of papers on the table--"this is the diary kept by my silly father when he was treasure hunting in Yucatan. Old fool, he got nothing but rheumatism. If he'd found gold and jewels, there would have been some sense in his explorations. Don't you think so? don't you think so? don't you? Oh, hang you, vicar; one might as well call the dead."
Leigh nodded absently, for the sound rather than the sense of this polite speech had reached him. Already he had opened the manuscript diary at random and, with his nose close to the pages, was pouring over the faded writing. Mr. Mallien growled as usual, and walked across to the mantelpiece to pick up his pipe for a morning smoke. When blue clouds made a haze round the eagerly reading parson, Mr. Mallien brought out a handful of precious stones of little value from his trousers pocket, and began to fiddle with them, after his ordinary fashion. He strewed ruby and emerald and moonstone about the table, where a shaft of sunlight struck across the room, and watched the many colored sparkles, emitted by the tiny gems. Leigh, taking no notice, turned over page after page with great interest. After a long while he grunted and spoke, maliciously anxious to spoil the scholar's pleasure if he could.
"Dull stuff my father wrote, didn't he?"
"Dear me, Mr. Mallien, are you there? Dull stuff. Oh, dear me, no. Most interesting. These Maya buildings are quite fascinating, and the manuscripts he discovered, and the stone carvings, and the hieroglyphics, similar to those of Egypt. Yes," went on the vicar dreamily, "I must go there."