Page:Dickens - Our Mutual Friend, ed. Lang, 1897, vol.1.djvu/44

 epaulettes, and laughs at some private and confidential comment from the mature young gentleman—his gloom deepens to that degree that he trifles quite ferociously with his dessert-knife.

Mortimer proceeds.

" We must now return, as novelists say, and as we all wish they wouldn't, to the man from Somewhere. Being a boy of fourteen, cheaply educated at Brussels when his sister's expulsion befell, it was some little time before he heard of it—probably from herself, for the mother was dead; but that I don't know. Instantly, he absconded, and came over here. He must have been a boy of spirit and resource, to get here on a stopped allowance of five sous a week; but he did it somehow, and he burst in on his father, and pleaded his sister's cause. Venerable parent promptly resorts to anathematization, and turns him out. Shocked and terrified boy takes flight, seeks his fortune, gets aboard ship, ultimately turns up on dry land among the Cape wine: small proprietor, farmer, grower—whatever you like to call it. "

At this juncture, shuffling is heard in the hall, and tapping is heard at the dining-room door. Analytical Chemist goes to the door, confers angrily with unseen tapper, appears to become mollified by descrying reason in the tapping, and goes out.

" So he was discovered, only the other day, after having been expatriated about fourteen years. "

A Buffer, suddenly astounding the other three, by detaching himself, and asserting individuality, inquires: " How discovered, and why? "

" Ah! To be sure. Thank you for reminding me. Venerable parent dies. "

Same Buffer, emboldened by success, says: " When? "

"The other day. Ten or twelve months ago. "

Same Buffer inquires with smartness, " What of? " But herein perishes a melancholy example; being regarded by the three other Buffers with a stony stare, and attracting no further attention from any mortal.