“Certainly, Mr. Dean. And tell him that you had the kindness to desire to know how he was?”
“Ay; do so, do so. Certainly. Wished to know how he was. By all means. Wished to know how he was.”
With a pleasant air of patronage, the Dean as nearly cocks his quaint hat as a Dean in good spirits may, and directs his comely gaiters towards the ruddy dining-room of the snug old redbrick house where he is at present, “in residence” with Mrs. Dean and Miss Dean.
Mr. Crisparkle, Minor Canon, fair and rosy, and perpetually pitching himself head-foremost into all the deep running water in the surrounding country; Mr. Crisparkle, Minor Canon, early riser, musical, classical, cheerful, kind, good-natured, social, contented, and boy-like; Mr. Crisparkle, Minor Canon and good man, lately “Coach” upon the chief Pagan high roads, but since promoted by a patron (grateful for a well-taught son) to his present Christian beat; betakes himself to the gatehouse, on his way home to his early tea.
“Sorry to hear from Tope that you have not been well, Jasper.”
“O, it was nothing, nothing!”
“You look a little worn.”
“Do I? O, I don’t think so. What is better, I don’t feel so. Tope has made too much of it, I suspect. It’s his trade to make the most of everything appertaining to the Cathedral, you know.”
“I may tell the Dean—I call expressly from the Dean—that you are all right again?”
The reply, with a slight smile, is: “Certainly; with my respects and thanks to the Dean.”