‘No; not the Reverend, but plain Mr Golightly. It may be all very well to play the part of a curate in a comedietta, but I don’t care to pose for the character in real life.’
‘But your clerical garb—everybody will take you for a parson.’
‘I can’t help that. If driven into a corner, I will tell people that I’m a preceptor of youth, in fact a tutor, which is no more than the truth, because, you see, I’m teaching Will Hanover to play the fiddle, so that he’s my pupil and I’m his tutor.’
‘But what made you choose such an outlandish name as Golightly?’ asked the other with a smile.
‘Because Golightly belongs to me, dear boy—it’s my own property. Know, good my lord, that my full name is Richard Golightly Dulcimer. My godfather was Dr Golightly, who’s now Bishop of Melminster. Many’s the tip I’ve had from him in the days when I wore a jacket and turn-down collar. But he wasn’t a bishop then, and my dad hadn’t lost his fortune, and things now in that quarter are by no means what they used to be.’
‘I’ll not forget the name. And now I must go; I’m expecting an important letter. We shall meet later on.’
‘For the present, ta, ta,’ said Mr Dulcimer.
‘Sly dog! Never said a word about his own little affair,’ muttered Dick. ‘Intolerably slow work waiting here. I wonder how much longer they’ll be? Ha! happy thought.—Hi!’
The last exclamatory remark was addressed to a waiter who was in the act of removing an empty bottle and some glasses from a garden-table a little way off.
Up came the waiter, a smiling, little, bullet-headed fellow, French or Swiss, with his black hair closely cropped, and clean-shaved, blue-black cheeks and chin.