Page:Cuthbert Bede--Little Mr Bouncer and Tales of College Life.djvu/241

Rh Mr. Percival Wylde gazed calmly on his interrogator, and, without betraying himself by the slightest show of confusion, said, in a careless, drawling tone, "You have the advantage of me, Sir."

"The what! the advantage! the doose, Sir!" cried the Old Boy, exploding at the first onset. "What the doose do you mean, Sir, about the advantage?"

"Really, Sir," replied the younger one, with a well-affected air of astonishment, "I can only repeat that you have the advantage of me."

"What!" cried the Old Boy, waxing even redder in the face, and hitting his stick upon the pavement after the manner of irate parents and guardians on the stage; "what! deny your own father! mean to say you don't know your own father!"

"Father!" said the other, with a slight shadow of polite astonishment in his tone; "Father! really, Sir, I"

"What!" cried the Old Boy, "not own your own father? I suppose you 'll say next that you are not my son?"

"You flatter me, Sir, by the supposition that I could be the offspring of so remarkable an old gentleman," was the cool reply; "but, really, I must confess my inability to lay claim to so singular a parent."

"Why! you—you—" stammered the Old Boy, whose rage was now at boiling point; "but, come, Sir! no more nonsense! Just turn your steps, and come with me to Morley's." Mr. Wylde, it must be remarked, en passant, patronised this Trafalgar-square Hotel, as it was in convenient neighbourhood to his Club, which was at the opposite corner of the square.

"Excuse me, old gentleman!" replied his son, with