“Well, I does hax it,” answered Mr. Tuppin brusquely; “not that I supposes you can tell me hanythin’ about it, neither!”
“Ha! per-raps not!” retorted the footman, abandoning the vagueness of mystery for the definiteness of imagination. “Per’aps I didn’t ’ear ’em conversin’ as we came along, and the gent a-sayin’ as ’ow ’e’d arf a millium as he was dyin’ to invest, and could the baronet adwise ’im on the subjick? And the baronet he says, says ’e, ‘Why, if ten per cent. is any good to you, my dear friend,’ says ’e, ‘I fancies we can take it hoff yer ’ands and no questions arsked.’ And the gent ’e said as ’ow ‘e’d think about it.”
“Oh, that’s the story, his it?” said Mr. Tuppin, pushing up his eyebrows and turning down the corners of his mouth. “Well, I thought it might ha’ been somethin’ new. But as fur that, my good feller,” he added, turning away indifferently, “Sir Francis was talkin’ about it arter dinner no longer ago nor day before yesterday. I ’eard ’im myself.”
To this assertion the footman was unable to frame a reply; being undecided whether to credit his own ears with miraculous inspiration, or to charge Mr. Tuppin with being a liar. The former course appearing the more agreeable both to his vanity and his self-interest, he ended by adopting it.
Dinner, instead of being served in the dining-room, which was in the front part of the house, and commanded no pleasant outlook, was laid out in the drawing-room, through the open windows of which the friends could let their eyes wander out upon the expanse of silken turf, and the verdurous masses of whispering foliage. A sentiment of cultured and imperturbable repose was expressed by this little region: not the vacant or helpless repose of wild nature; but the repose that comes of over-ripeness, or of containing more than can be uttered. The quaint ghosts of past times paced the deep smoothness of the lawn, and lurked in the shadows of the trees.
“Other parts of the world are better, perhaps, to live in than England,” remarked Mr. Grant: “but the place to die in is here.”
“What’s that? Die in? Pooh! time enough to talk of dying twenty years hence,” cried the genial baronet.
“Twenty years is a long time to wait,” replied the other meditatively. “The time to leave life is when you find it pleasant, but no longer necessary. My former interests are finished. I should not care to become absorbed in new ones; not in this world at all events.”
Here the servant entered with the after-dinner wine.
“We can’t afford to lose you yet awhile, my dear friend,” exclaimed the baronet. “Now that we have you safely with us again, we mean to keep hold of you. What do you say to finishing our wine out yonder on the lawn? Yes—Tuppin, take the small table out, and a couple of chairs. Such weather as this should be taken advantage of.”