"Thanks, no; never smoke now," said he, closing his eyes, and lifting his hand as if in a benediction.
"Oh, to be sure, your bishop—I forgot," said Cleve.
"Yes, a-ha; strong opinions—very able lecture; you have no doubt read it."
"With delight and terror. Death riding on a pipe-clay coloured horse. Sir Walter Raleigh, the man of sin, and the smoke of the Bottomless pit, smelling of cheroots. You used not to be such a fool, old Dixie. I'm your bishop now; I've said it, mind—and no one sees you," said Cleve, again offering his cigars.
"Well, well; anything, anything; thanks, just for once, only once;" and he selected one, with a playful bashfulness.
"I'm your bishop—I don't forget. But you must wait till I'm—what d'ye call it?—consecrated—there, you need not laugh. Upon my honour, I'm serious; you shall have your choice; I swear you shall," said Cleve Verney, who stood very near the title and estates of Verney, with all their comfortable advowsons appendant.
The Reverend Isaac Dixie smiled affably and meekly with prospective gratitude, and said he softly—
"I'm only too happy to think my distinguished, and I may say, honoured pupil, should deem me fit for a weighty charge in the Church; and I may say, although Clay has been considered a nice little thing, some years ago, yet, since the vicar's—I must say, most unreasonable—claim has been allowed, it is really, I should be ashamed to say how trifling in emolument; we have all our crosses to bear, my dear pupil, friend, and I may say, patron—but it is good, nay, pleasant to me to have suffered disappointments, since in their midst comes no trifling balm in the confidence you are pleased to evidence in my humble fitness."
The clergyman was moved. A gleam of the red western sun through the window, across his broad, meek, and simpering countenance, helped the effect of his blinking eyes, and he hastily applied his handkerchief.
"Isaac, Isaac, you shan't come that over me. I don't think you fit—not a bit. I'm not an Aristides, only a bishop; and I don't pretend to more conscience than the rest." His eye rested on him with an unconscious disdain. "And for the life of me, I don't know why I intend doing anything for you, except that I promised, and your name's lucky, I suppose; you used to keep telling me, don't you remember, that all the promises were to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? and you are Isaac, in the middle—medio tutissimus—and I think Isaac is the queerest mixture of Jew and muff in the Old Testament, and—and—so on."