“Spiff,” replied Viscount Diphoos, a dapper little boyish fellow of four-and-twenty, most carefully dressed, and looking as if, as really was the case, he had just been shampooned, scented, and washed by Monsieur Launay, the French barber. “I say, gov’nor, that tremendous sigh don’t sound complimentary to your son and heir.”
“My dear boy—my dear Tom,” said the old man affectionately, as he toddled up to the back of his son’s chair, and stood there patting his shoulders. “It isn’t that—it isn’t that. I’m very, very proud of my children. Bless you, my dear Tom; bless you, my dear boy! You’re a very good son to me, but I’m—I’m a bit weak this morning about Diana; and that confounded fellow with his organ playing those melancholy tunes quite upset me.”
“But he has gone now, governor,” said Tom.
“Yes, my boy, but—but he’ll come back again, he always does. Grind, grind, grind, till he seems to me to be grinding me; and I do not like to swear, Tom, it’s setting you such a bad example; but at times I feel as if I must say damn, or something inside me would go wrong.”
“Say it then, gov’nor, I’ll forgive you. There, I have granted you my indulgence.”
“Thank you, Tom; thank you, Diphoos.”
“No, no, gov’nor. Tom!—don’t Diphoos me. I wish that confounded old wet sponge of a Welsh mountain had been ‘diffoosed’ before it gave me my name.”
“Ye-es, it is ugly, Tom. But they are family names, you see, Barmouth—Diphoos. Very old family the Diphooses. And now this wedding—but there, I’m all right now.”
“To be sure you are, gov’nor.”
“Yes, yes, yes; you are very good to me, Tom. Bless you, my boy, bless you.”