Page:Cuthbert Bede--Little Mr Bouncer and Tales of College Life.djvu/149

Rh Bouncer, "if I wished to evade the question, that my name is Norval, on the Grampian hills; which, perhaps, it might be, if I had ever been there. But, as I don't care to provide myself with an alias, I may as well confess that my Christian name is Henry, and my surname is Bouncer."

"You think it 's Bouncer, eh?" inquired Dr. Dustacre, looking at him with a searching gaze, through his gold-mounted spectacles, and tapping his chair with his gold-headed ebony cane.

"Think?" echoed Mr. Bouncer. "Well! I 've been known by that name as long as I can remember any thing." And he thought to himself—Whatever is the old bald-pate driving at? he's a very rummy looking cove, and he entered the room very mysteriously. I hope he 's not an escaped lunatic! if so, what shall I do? he 's between me and the door, so I can't get away in that direction. Here 's the window open behind me; perhaps I can jump through that, like a clown in a pantomime, if he should get wild and attack me. He 's got a formidable-looking stick; and I 've nothing to defend myself with, unless it 's an ivory paper-knife. He 's evidently very eccentric; and I should n't wonder at his being a lunatic. I suppose it will be my best policy to humour him. Yes; I 'll humour him.

Meanwhile, Dr. Dustacre was thinking—Mr. Smalls was quite right. It is another evidence of mental delusion on the part of this unfortunate young man that he cannot remember his own name.

And so the conversation went on. Dr. Dustacre started two or three subjects; but, to Mr. Bouncer, they appeared as disconnected as though they were consecutive readings from Johnson's Dictionary, or the medley