“As the day is long. Might trust him with untold millions. Such, at least, were the marginal observations on the phrenological chart of his head, submitted to me by the mother.”
“How old?”
“Just fifteen.”
“Tall? Stout?”
“Uncommonly so, for his age, his mother remarked.”
“Industrious?”
“The busy bee.”
The bachelor fell into a troubled reverie. At last, with much hesitancy, he spoke:
“Do you think now, candidly, that—I say candidly—candidly—could I have some small, limited—some faint, conditional degree of confidence in that boy? Candidly, now?”
“Candidly, you could.”