Sir Gervaise was too-well bred to laugh, but he found it difficult to suppress a smile.
"Well, Sir Wycherly," resumed the vice-admiral, "this is quite plain—Sir Reginald is only half, while your nephew Tom, and the rest, are whole—Margery and Joan, and all that. Any thing more to tell us, my dear sir?"
"Tom not whole—nullus, I wish to say. Sir Reginald half—no nullus."
"This is like being at sea a week, without getting a sight of the sun! I am all adrift, now, gentlemen."
"Sir Wycherly does not attend to his cases," put in Atwood, drily. "At one time, he is in the genitive, and then he gets back to the nominative; which is leaving us in the vocative"
"Come—come—Atwood, none of your gun-room wit, on an occasion so solemn as this. My dear Sir Wycherly, have you any thing more to tell us? I believe we perfectly understand you, now. Tom is not whole—you wish to say nullus, and not to say nullius. Sir Reginald is only half, but he is no nullus."
"Yes, sir—that is it," returned the old man, smiling. "Half, but no nullus. Change my mind—seen too much of the other, lately—Tom, my nephew—want to make him my heir."
"This is getting clearer, out of all question. You wish to make your nephew, Tom, your heir. But the law does that already, does it not my dear sir? Mr. Baron Wychecombe was the next brother of the baronet; was he not, Mr. Rotherham?"
"So I have always understood, sir; and Mr. Thomas Wychecombe must be the heir at law."
"No—no—nullus—nullus," repeated Sir Wycherly, with so much eagerness as to make his voice nearly indistinct; "Sir Reginald—Sir Reginald—Sir Reginald."