There was a fire, too, in this one room. Mr. ------ is making
extensive alterations in the house, or has recently done so, and this is
perhaps one reason of its ungenial meagreness and lack of finish.
Before our departure from Wooton, Tupper had asked me to leave my card
for Mr. ------; but I had no mind to overstep any limit of formal
courtesy in dealing with an Englishman, and therefore declined. Tupper,
however, on his own responsibility, wrote his name, Bennoch's, and mine
on a piece of paper, and told the servant to show them to Mr. ------. We
soon had experience of the good effect of this; for we had scarcely got
back before somebody drove up to Tupper's door, and one of the girls,
looking out, exclaimed that there was Mr. ------ himself, and another
gentleman. He had set out, the instant he heard of our call, to bring
the three precious volumes for me to see. This surely was most kind; a
kindness which I should never have dreamed of expecting from a shy,
retiring man like Mr. ------.
So he and his friend were ushered into the dining-room, and introduced.
Mr. ------ is a young-looking man, dark, with a mustache, rather small,
and though he has the manners of a man who has seen the world, it
evidently requires an effort in him to speak to anybody; and I could see
his whole person slightly writhing itself, as it were, while he addressed
me. This is strange in a man of his public position, member for the
county, necessarily mixed up with life in many forms, the possessor of
sixteen thousand pounds a year, and the representative of an ancient
name.
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