Little Mr Bouncer and His Friend Verdant Green/Chapter 18
CHAPTER XVIII.
LITTLE MR. BOUNCER IS STILL MORE SURPRISED AT DR. DUSTACRE.
OINTING with his gold-headed ebony cane to the copy of the "Times" over which Mr. Bouncer had been nodding, Dr. Dustacre said, interrogatively, "Fond of reading?"
"That all depends upon the sort of reading that I get hold of," replied Mr. Bouncer, as he thought of the leading article that he had just been dozing over, when the sonorous sentences on the political crisis in Moldavia had failed to excite or amuse him. "A good murder or a daring burglary is interesting, so is a prize-fight, for the matter of that."
"Do you prefer the perusal of works of modern fiction to the study of classical authors?" asked Dr. Dustacre.
"I should rather think I did," answered Mr. Bouncer, heartily, as he thought to himself—This old bald-pate is the parson of the parish who coached Smalls. I hope he 's not going to put me through an examination, and thinks that, as I 'm fresh from college, I ought to be well up in the classics.
"Yet the study of classical authors is a most improving and healthy pursuit," observed the Doctor, who, from the sententiousness of his remark might have been Dr. Johnson himself.
"I don't know about that—at least, in my case," replied Mr. Bouncer. "Pickwick 's more in my line than Plautus; and I prefer Bulwer to Virgil any day. But, I suppose I have n't the brains for Greek and Latin."
"Do you find that the study of dead languages affects your brain in any particular way?" asked Dr. Dustacre.
"Makes it like pap!" replied Mr. Bouncer, frankly, "or else they gave me too much pap when I was a baby, and softened my brains."
"You were not here when you were a baby, I think?" inquired the Doctor.
"Oh dear, no; at that uninteresting period of my existence I was in another part of England," was Mr. Bouncer's reply.
"Though you have been here, residing in this house, many years?"
"Oh, no; I have not."
"Not for the last two years?"
"Not for the last two weeks."
"You were not here, for example, last week?" asked Dr. Dustacre, continuing his examination of the supposed Mr. Winstanley, while the real Simon Pure, crouched behind the laurel outside the open window of the study, listened to every word of the conversation.
"Most decidedly I was not here last week," replied Mr. Bouncer.
"Then you have not been in the house for some time past?"
"Never set foot in it till last night!" said Mr. Bouncer, as he thought—This old bald-pate is a very queer party; he can't be, as I imagined, the parson of the parish, or he would not ask such questions. Perhaps he 's some parson who is on a visit to the Rectory.
Dr. Dustacre nodded his head in a Burleigh-like way, as though his examination had satisfactorily determined one point in the case on which his professional opinion had been requested. "It is as Mr. Smalls wrote to me," he said to himself. "One of the mental delusions of this Mr. Winstanley is, that he imagines that he has not been at the Woodlands for many years." Dr. Dustacre then, as sailors say, went on another tack. Meanwhile, the Simon Pure, who was crouched behind the laurel, had a significant smile upon his face as he attentively listened to the conversation in the study.
"What a nice man Mr. Smalls is—I mean the Squire!" said the Doctor.
"So he seems," replied Mr. Bouncer.
"You must be very much attached to him?" pursued the Doctor, interrogatively.
"Me? Why?" asked Mr. Bouncer, with some surprise.
"For all that he has done for you," said the Doctor.
"He has done nothing for me, that I am aware of," said Mr. Bouncer, "beyond giving me a good dinner last night and a capital glass of port, and allowing his son to invite me here."
Thought the Doctor—This confirms what Mr. Smalls told me. This unfortunate young man imagines that his uncle has done nothing for him. This corroborates what was reported to me concerning the second point in
his mental delusions. "Let me see," he added, aloud, "your name is—bless me, what a bad memory I have; your name is—what is your name?"
Thought Mr. Bouncer—He 'll next ask me who gave me that name, and what did my godfathers and godmothers then for me. "I might reply," answered Mr. 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 news column from a provincial newspaper. But the conversation, such as it was, was sufficient to confirm the two speakers in the opinions that they had mutually formed of each other.
Old bald-pate, thought Mr. Bouncer, is certainly a most eccentric party, both in his looks and ways. He has evidently got a tile off. By which phrase the little gentleman meant that his temporary companion was, to a certain degree, non compos mentis. Though Mr. Bouncer would have been greatly astounded could he have known that the bald-headed individual with a skull like the egg of an ostrich, who was seated before him, had arrived at a like conclusion regarding himself; and he would have been even more surprised if he had been told that the mysterious visitor to the Woodlands was about to act upon that conclusion.
"Perhaps you would not mind walking with me to the gate?" asked Dr. Dustacre, as he rose from his seat, and gave evidence that he had brought the interview to an end, and was about to quit the house, and imitate the juggling trick of covering the ostrich's egg with his hat.
"Oh dear, no! I shall be grattered and flatified—that is to say, flattered and gratified," replied Mr. Bouncer. And he thought to himself—It will be quite as well for me to see old bald-pate off the premises. If poor Tom Winstanley should meet him, and get into conversation with such an eccentricity, it might make him as mad as a hatter, and do poor Tom a great deal of harm. So it will be best for me to take charge of bald-pate, and see him safe to the Rectory, or wherever he may be hanging out.
As Dr. Dustacre and Mr. Bouncer passed through the hall, the latter, while getting his hat, might have been observed to select from the umbrella-stand the thickest walking-stick that was in Mr. Smalls' collection. Armed with this cudgel, he walked forth boldly with his companion, and accompanied him down the drive that led from the house to the lodge. There was no fear of young Winstanley meeting them; though he curiously watched their movements from behind a safe covert of shrubs and trees.