“Old Mr. Turveydrop is so sorry,” said Caddy, “that he has not finished dressing yet and cannot have the pleasure of seeing you before you go. You are such a favourite of his, Esther.”
I expressed myself much obliged to him, but did not think it necessary to add that I readily dispensed with this attention.
“It takes him a long time to dress,” said Caddy, “because he is very much looked up to in such things, you know, and has a reputation to support. You can’t think how kind he is to Pa. He talks to Pa of an evening about the Prince Regent, and I never saw Pa so interested.”
There was something in the picture of Mr. Turveydrop bestowing his deportment on Mr. Jellyby that quite took my fancy. I asked Caddy if he brought her papa out much.
“No,” said Caddy, “I don’t know that he does that, but he talks to Pa, and Pa greatly admires him, and listens, and likes it. Of course I am aware that Pa has hardly any claims to deportment, but they get on together delightfully. You can’t think what good companions they make. I never saw Pa take snuff before in my life, but he takes one pinch out of Mr. Turveydrop’s box regularly and keeps putting it to his nose and taking it away again all the evening.”
That old Mr. Turveydrop should ever, in the chances and changes of life, have come to the rescue of Mr. Jellyby from Borrioboola-Gha appeared to me to be one of the pleasantest of oddities.
“As to Peepy,” said Caddy with a little hesitation, “whom I was most afraid of—next to having any family of my own, Esther—as an inconvenience to Mr. Turveydrop, the kindness of the old gentleman to