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ON HIS WAY THROUGH THE WORLD 191
" Yes, aunt," says downright Phil, " I'll come, if you and the
girls wish. You know tea is not my line ; and I don't care about
dinners, except in my own way, and with ________ "
" And with your own horrid set, sir !"
"Well," says Sultan Philip, flinging himself out on the sofa,
and lording on the ottoman, " I like mine ease and mine inn."
" Ah, Philip ! you grow more selfish every day. I mean men
do," sighed Agnes.
You will suppose mamma leaves the room at this juncture.
She has that confidence in dear Philip and the dear girls, that she
sometimes does leave the room when Agnes and Phil are together.
She will leave REUBEN, the eldest born, with her daughters : but
my poor dear little younger son of a Joseph, if you suppose she will
leave the room and you alone in it—O my dear Joseph, you may
just jump down the well at once ! Mamma, I say, has left the
room at last, bowing with a perfect sweetness and calm grace and
gravity; and she has slipped down the stairs, scarce more noisy
than the shadow that slants over the faded carpet (oh ! the faded
shadow, the faded sunshine !)—mamma is gone, I say, to the lower
regions, and with perfect good breeding is torturing the butler on
his bottle-rack—is squeezing the housekeeper in her jam-closet—is
watching the three cold cutlets shuddering in the larder behind the
wires—is blandly glancing at the kitchen-maid until the poor wench
fancies the piece of bacon is discovered which she gave to the
crossing-sweeper—and calmly penetrating John until he feels sure
his inmost heart is revealed to her, as it throbs within his worstedlaced
waistcoat, and she knows about that pawning of master's old
boots (beastly old highlows!), and—and, in fact, all the most intimate
circumstances of his existence. A wretched maid, who has
been ironing collars, or what not, gives her mistress a shuddering
curtsey, and slinks away with her laces ; and meanwhile our girl
and boy are prattling in the drawing-room.
About what ? About everything on which Philip chooses to
talk. There is nobody to contradict him but himself, and then
his pretty hearer vows and declares he has not been so very contradictory.
He spouts his favourite poems. "Delightful! Do,
Philip, read us some Walter Scott ! He is, as you say, the most
fresh, the most manly, the most kindly of poetic writers—not of
the first class, certainly. In fact, he has written most dreadful
bosh, as you call it so drolly; and so has Wordsworth, though he
is one of the greatest of men, and has reached sometimes to the
very greatest height and sublimity of poetry ; but now you put it,
I must confess he is often an old bore, and I certainly should have
gone to sleep during the ' Excursion,' only you read it so nicely.