“You must not quarrel with him, Nancy,”
says Sir Roger, laughing. “He lives not
a stone’s-throw from us.”
“So he told me!”
“Poor fellow!” with an accent of compassion.
“He has never had much of a chance; he has been
his own master almost ever since he was born—a
bad thing for any boy—he has no parents,
you know.”
“So he told me.”
“Neither has he any brothers or sisters.”
“So he told me!”
“He seems to have told you a great many things.”
“Yes,” reply I, “but then I asked
him a great many questions: our conversation
was rather like the catechism: the moment I stopped
asking him questions, he began asking me!”
Three long days—all blue and gold—blue
sky and gold sunshine—roll away. If
Schmidt, the courier, has a fault, it is over-driving
us. We visit the Gruene Gewoelbe, the Japanese
Palace, the Zwinger—and we visit them alone.
Dresden is not a very large place, yet in no part of
it, in none of its bright streets—in neither
its old nor its new market, in none of its public
places, do I catch a glimpse of my new acquaintance.
Neither does he come to call. This last fact surprises
me a little, and disappoints me a good deal.
Our walk at the Linnisches Bad in the gay lamplight,
his character, his conversation, even his appearance,
begin to undergo a transformation in my mind.
After all, he was not really dark—not
one of those black men, against whom Barbara and I
have always lifted up our testimonies; by daylight,
I think his eyes would have been hazel. He certainly
was very easy to talk to. One had not to pump
up conversation for him, and I do not suppose that,
as men go, he was really very touchy.
One cannot expect everybody to be so jest-hardened
and robustly good-tempered as the boys. Often
before now I have only been able to gauge the unfortunateness
of my speeches to men, by the rasping effect they
have had on their tempers, and which has often taken
me honestly by surprise.
“Again, Mr. Musgrave has not been to
call,” say I, one afternoon, on returning from
a long and rather grilling drive, speaking in a slightly
annoyed tone.
“Did you expect that he would?” asks Sir
Roger, with a smile. “I think that, after
the searching snub you gave him, he would have been
a bolder man than I take him for, if he had risked
his head in the lion’s mouth.”
“Am I such a lion?” say I, with
an accent of vexation. “Did I snub him?
I am sure I had no more idea of snubbing him than I
had of snubbing you; that is the way in which
I always cut my own throat!”
I draw a chair into the balcony, where he has already
established himself with his cigar, and sit down beside
him.
“I foresee,” say I, beginning to laugh
rather grimly, “that a desert will spread all
round our house! your friends will disappear before
my tongue, like morning mist.”
