"'Pon my soul, I think you'll do something some day, young 'un!" were his cheering words. "That's the real thing! Wonderful improvement since I saw it; got rid of the hay-headed child, and come out no end. Don't think the sunlight's _quite_ that colour, is it? and perhaps no reason why those reaping-parties shouldn't have noses and mouths as well as eyes and chins. Don't try scamping, Charley,--you're not big enough for that; wait till you're made an R.A., and then the critics will point out the beauties of your outline; at present you must copy nature. And now"--lighting his pipe--"how are you?"
"O, I'm all right, William," responded Mr. Potts; "all right, and working like any number of steam-engines. Orson, sir--if I may so describe myself--Orson is endowed with reason. Orson has begun to find out that life is different from what he imagined, and has gone in for something different."
"Ha!" said old Bowker, eyeing the young man kindly as he puffed at his pipe; "it's not very difficult to discover what's up now, then.
"O, I don't want to make any mystery about it," said Charley. "The simple fact is, that having seen the folly of what is called a life of pleasure--"
"At thirty years of age!" interrupted Bowker.
"Well, what then?--at thirty years of age! One does not want to be a Methuselah like you before one discovers the vanity, the emptiness, the heartlessness of life."
"Of course not, Charley?" said Bowker, greatly delighted. "Go on!"
"And I intend to--to----to cut it, Bowker, and go in for something better. It's something, sir, to have something to work for. I have an end in view, to--"
"Well, but you've always had that. I thought that your ideas were concentrated on being President of the Academy, and returning thanks for your health, proposed by the Prime Minister."
"Bowker, you are a ribald. No, sir; there is a spur to my ambition far beyond the flabby presidentship of that collection of dreary old parties--"
"Yes, I know and the spur is marked with the initials M.L. That it, Master Charley?"
"It may be, Bowker, and it may be not. Meanwhile, my newly-formed but unalterable resolutions do not forbid the discussion of malt-liquor, and Caroline yet understands the signal-code."