“Well, I'll tell you, and add another wrinkle to your face. Mediocria firma, when applied to Bacon, means nothing more nor less than sound middlings. But I tell you what, this young mad-cap, Bacon, will have to adopt the motto of another namesake of his, and ancestor, perhaps, for friars aye regarded their tithes more favourably than their vows of virtue—and were fathers in the church as well by the first as the second birth.”
“What ancestor do you allude to now, Dick?” asked the Governor.
“Why, old Friar Bacon, who lamented that time was, time is, and time will be. And to my mind, when time shall cease with our young squealing porker here, we will e'en substitute hemp in its stead.”
“Thou art a mad wag, Presley,” said the Governor, laughing, “and seem to have sharpened thy wit by strapping it on the Bible containing the whole Bacon genealogy. Come, Temple, let me introduce to your most favourable acquaintance, Major Richard Presley, the Falstaff of Virginia, with as big a paunch, and if not as merry a wit, at least as great a love for sack—aye, Presley?”
“Yes, but indifferent honest, Governor, which I fear my great prototype was not,” replied the old wag, as he shook hands with Colonel Temple.
“Well, I believe you can be trusted, Dick,” said the Governor, kindly, “and I may yet give you a regiment of foot to quell this modern young Hotspur of Virginia.”
“Aye, that would be rare fun,” said Presley, with a merry laugh, “but look ye, I must take care to attack him in as favourable circumstances as the true Falstaff did, or 'sblood he might embowell me.”
“I would like to own the tobacco that would be raised over your grave then, Dick,” said the Governor, laughing, “but never fear but I will supply you with a young Prince Hal, as merry, as wise, and as brave.”
“Which is he, then? for I can't tell your true prince by instinct yet.”
“There he stands talking to Miss Virginia Temple. You know him, Colonel Temple, and I trust that you have not found that my partiality has overrated his real merit.”