“Little!” said Christie Bayle laughing frankly, and justifying Sir Gordon’s remarks about his youthful looks. “Really, I should like to be there when you call. You will be astonished.”
“What, has the child grown?”
“Child? Grown? Why, my dear sir, you will have to be presented to a beautiful young lady of eighteen, wonderfully like her mother in the old days.”
“Indeed! Hah! yes. Old days, Bayle. Yes, old days, indeed. The thought of them makes me feel how time has gone. Look young, eh? Bah! I’m an old fool, Bayle. Deal better if I had been born poor. You should see me when Tom Porter takes me to pieces, and puts me to bed of a night. Why, Bayle, I don’t mind telling you. Always were a good lad, and I liked you. I’m one of the most frightful impositions of my time. Wig, sir; confound it! sham teeth, sir, and they are horribly uncomfortable. Whiskers dyed, sir. The rest all tailor’s work. Feel ashamed of myself sometimes. At others I say to myself that it’s showing a bold front to the enemy. No, sir, not a bit of truth in me anywhere.”
“Except your heart,” said Bayle, smiling.
“Tchut! man, hold your tongue. Now about yourself. Why don’t you get a comfortable rectory somewhere, instead of plodding on in this hole?”
“Because I am more useful here.”
“Nonsense! Get a good West-end lectureship.”
“I prefer the North here.”
“My dear Christie Bayle, you are throwing yourself away. There, I can’t keep it back. Old Doctor Thomson is dead, and if you will come I have sufficient interest with the bishop, providing I bring forward a good man, to get him the living at King’s Castor.”