"Well, Louis, if you're done talking to your mother, you'd better come down and see Guardy. He's just woke up, but he doesn't know yet you've come," said Gipsy.
Louis went down stairs, taking half the staircase at a bound in his haste. Pushing open the parlor door, he unceremoniously entered the presence of the squire, who, after his old habit, lay in a lounging chair, with his feet stretched upon another, smoking his pipe with the benign air of a man at peace with himself and the rest of mankind.
At the abrupt entrance of Louis he looked up with a start, and muttered something suspiciously like an oath at seeing a tall, dark foreigner—as he supposed him to be—standing before him.
"Eh? who the deuce—I beg your pardon, sir, sit down," said the squire, staring with all his eyes.
"Do you not know me, my dear grandfather?" said Louis, advancing with extended hand.
"Why! Lord bless me, if it is not Louis Oranmore," said the squire, jumping up, "with as much hair on his face as a chimpanzee monkey has on its body. Bless my heart! this is a surprise! When did you get home? Eh, when did you come?"
"About an hour ago, sir."
"And you're Louis? Well, well! Why, you weren't as high as that when you left," holding his hand about three inches from the ground, "and here you come back as tall as a lamp-post, with mustache enough for a shoe-brush, and dressed like a Spanish grandee. 'All's vanity,' as Solomon says. Well, and how did you get on with those old humbugs you went off to see—eh?"
"What old humbugs, sir?"
"Pooh! you know very well—the old masters."