"He's got 'em bad to-night."
"Say 'incipient cerebral effusion marks him especially for its prey at this vesper hour.' SMYTHE—to Father DEAN," again softly interposes Mr. SIMPSON, the Gospeler.
"Mr. SIMPSON," pursues Father DEAN, whose name has been modified, by various theological stages, from its original form of Paudean, to Pere DEAN—Father DEAN, "I regret to hear that Mr. BUMSTEAD is so delicate in health; you may stop at his boarding-house on your way home, and ask him how he is, with my compliments." Pax vobiscum.
Shining so with a sense of his own benignity that the retiring sun gives up all rivalry at once and instantly sets in despair, Father DEAN departs to his dinner, and Mr. SIMPSON, the Gospeler, betakes himself cheerily to the second-floor-back where Mr. BUMSTEAD lives. Mr. BUMSTEAD is a shady-looking man of about six and twenty, with black hair and whiskers of the window-brush school, and a face reminding you of the BOURBONS. As, although lighting his lamp, he has, abstractedly, almost covered it with his hat, his room is but imperfectly illuminated, and you can just detect the accordeon on the window-sill, and, above the mantel, an unfinished sketch of a school-girl. (There is no artistic merit in this picture; in which, indeed, a simple triangle on end represents the waist, another and slightly larger triangle the skirts, and straight-lines with rake-like terminations the arms and hands.)
"Called to ask how you are, and offer Father DEAN'S compliments," says the Gospeler.
"I'm allright, shir!" says Mr. BUMSTEAD, rising from the rug where he has been temporarily reposing, and dropping his umbrella. He speaks almost with ferocity.
"You are awaiting your nephew, EDWIN DROOD?"
"Yeshir." As he answers, Mr. BUMSTEAD leans languidly far across the table, and seems vaguely amazed at the aspect of the lamp with his hat upon it.
Mr. SIMPSON retires softly, stops to greet some one at the foot of the stairs, and, in another moment, a young man fourteen years old enters the room with his carpet-bag.
"My dear boys! My dear EDWINS!"