Page:Cuthbert Bede--Little Mr Bouncer and Tales of College Life.djvu/166

146 bow, opened the chaise door for him to step out, and said, "Mr. Bouncer, I ought to have believed you when you told me your name; but I construed your words to mean what, in vulgar parlance, is called 'a bouncer;' and I thought that you were purposely deceiving me. I owe you more apologies than I can express, and I know not how sufficiently to ask your pardon. Through a series of misconceptions, I arrived at the conclusion that you were the young Mr. Winstanley whom Mr. Smalls is entrusting, for a time, to my care as a patient; and, in point of fact, I was escorting you to my house for that purpose. I beg you ten thousand pardons for the mistake I have so stupidly made, and also for any inconvenience to which I may have put you. Any reparation that I can make, or any apology that you think fit to require, shall be most cheerfully proffered to you."

Little Mr. Bouncer cut short the Doctor's speech by laughter that could not be controlled. He was not only the essence of good-nature, but was also keenly alive to a joke; and the absurdity of the scene through which he had passed was too much for his feelings, as he thought how he and the Doctor had been mutually deceived. The sight of the Doctor standing bowing to him and revealing glimpses of his bald ostrich-egg-looking head, and then covering it up again with his hat, as though he were performing a juggling trick, moved Mr. Bouncer's risible faculties. "It 's as good as a play," he managed to say, between his bursts of laughter; "the richest thing I 've known for a long time! Forgive you? Of course I do, sir! You 've got the worst of the joke, I think; for you 've had all your trouble for nothing. I 'm quite right, and have no need