“Thank you,” said Lenorme very heartily; “that will be of immense advantage. Write at once.”
“I will, sir.—Only I’m a bigger man than my—late master, and you must mind that.”
“I’ll see to it. You get the clothes, and all the rest of the accoutrements—rich with barbaric gems and gold, and——”
“Neither gems nor gold, sir;—honest Scotch cairngorms and plain silver,” said Malcolm.
“I only quoted Milton,” returned Lenorme.
“Then you should have quoted correctly, sir.—‘Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,’—that’s the line, and you can’t better it. Mr Graham always pulled me up if I didn’t quote correctly.— By-the-bye, sir, some say it’s kings barbaric, but there’s barbaric gold in Virgil.”
“I dare say you are right,” said Lenorme. “But you’re far too learned for me.”
“Don’t make game of me, sir. I know two or three books pretty well, and when I get a chance I can’t help talking about them. It’s so seldom now I can get a mouthful of Milton. There’s no cave here to go into, and roll the mimic thunder in your mouth. If the people here heard me reading loud out, they would call me mad. It’s a mercy in this London, if a working-man get loneliness enough to say his prayers in!”
“You do say your prayers then?” asked Lenorme, looking at him curiously.
“Yes; don’t you, sir? You had so much sense about the beasts I thought you must be a man that said his prayers.”