Little! confound his picture! I stand five feet ten in my stockings, and measure thirty-eight inches over the chest—but, sure enough, little I was beside him; for he was in truth a very son of Anak. Six feet four without his shoes, and yet so exquisitely fashioned, and in so perfect proportion, that unless there stood some one near him, against whom to institute a comparison, you would not have taken him for a six-footer. Alas! that very prematureness of perfect size and stature had perhaps sapped already the foundations of that noble piece of architecture, and foredoomed it to decay as speedy and untimely as its growth had been unduly rapid.
But no such thought as this at that time thrust itself upon us—we were young, bold, self-confident, free, fearless of the future, and dreamed of any thing, in our proud aspirations after all that was great and noble, rather than of that which was so soon to befall us—untimely death the one, the other, long, long years of weary wandering.
“My name is George Gordon,” said the Highland giant, “of Newton, near Old Raine, in Aberdeenshire.”
“And mine, Frank Forester, of Forest Hall, near Wetherby, in the West Riding.”
“Well, Mr. Forester, seeing that we now know one another, suppose we eat our first mutton, side by side, in this hall of Caius, and send the Dons to the devil!”
“Agreed, Mr. Gordon, provided that the mutton ended, you will take your port with me, at No. 12 in the Fellows’ Court. It is some of Carbonell’s purple, and by no means to be despised, I assure you. It is a present from John L—, of fox-hunting celebrity in Yorkshire, whom you may perhaps have heard of, even so far as Aberdeenshire.”
“Jack L—! who has not heard of him, I should like to know. I shall be too happy, Mr. Forester, the rather that my wine has not yet made its appearance.”
“By the way, don’t you think we might just as well drop the Mister?”
“And be—George Gordon?”
“And Frank Forester. And make these Caius snobs—I have no doubt they are snobs, if they were ten times Dons—believe that we have known each other these ten years.”