“Umph! they're gone, are they? the scoundrels, high time they should, I think; where's my umbrella? umph! second I've lost this year—just like me”.
The voice, the manner, but, above all, the emphatic grunts and the final self-accusing soliloquy, “just like me,” could proceed but from one person, my old Helmstone acquaintance, Mr. Frampton; though by what strange chance he should be found wandering by owl-light in a meadow near Cambridge passed my comprehension to conceive. Feeling secure from the alteration which had taken place in me since I had last seen him—an alteration rendered still more complete by my academical costume—that he would be unable to recognise me, I determined to amuse myself a little at his expense before I made myself known to him. In pursuance of this plan I picked up his umbrella and handed it to him, saying in an assumed voice as I did so, “Here is your umbrella, sir”.
“Thank ye, young man, thank ye, cost five-and-twenty shillings last Friday week; umph! might have got a cotton one for less than one quarter the money, that would have done just as well to thump thieves with—a fool and his money—just like me, umph!”
“I hope you are not injured by your fall, or by the rough treatment you have been subjected to?” inquired I.
“Umph! injured?” was the reply; “I've got a great bump on the back of my head, and burst all the buttons off my waistcoat—I don't know whether you call that being injured; but I can tell you I got away from the Thugs at Strangleabad without any such injuries: umph!”
“It was fortunate that I happened to come up just when I did,” observed I.
“Umph! glad you think so,” was the answer; “if that stick had come down upon your skull, as the blackguard meant it to do, you would not have found it quite so fortunate, I've a notion. Umph! all the same, I'm much obliged to you; I might have been robbed and murdered too, if it had not been for you, young man, and if you'll walk home with me to the 'Hoop'—there's a name for an inn!—I'll give you a couple of sovereigns. and that's more than you've earned before to-day, I'll be bound—umph!”
“I shall be delighted to see you safe home, sir, but you will excuse my declining your pecuniary offer, though I must plead guilty to the charge of not having earned as much—I believe I might say, in my whole life before.”
“Umph! I see—a gentleman, eh? and I to offer him money—just like me—a lord, or a duke, I shouldn't wonder—there are all sorts and sizes of 'em here, they tell me—ask him to dinner. Umph! perhaps you'll do me the honour of dining with me, young man—my lord, I mean—mulligatawny—cat smothered in rice, which they call curry—kibobs, and kickshaws—the cook is not so bad for a white; but you should go to India if you care about eating—that's the place for cookery, sir.”
“I shall have much pleasure in accepting your invitation,” replied I, “if you will allow me to run away directly after dinner: I am reading for my degree, and time is precious with me just now.”