to
dinner without being invited. My uncle was grumpy, snappish, silent,
giving his visitor most unmistakably to understand that his calls were
anything but a pleasure to him; but it was all of no use. Once, when
the old gentleman was complaining to me (in strong enough language, as
his manner was) on the subject of this schoolfellow, I said I thought
he should simply show him the door and have done with it. 'That
wouldn't do, boy,' said my uncle, puckering his face into a rather
pleased smile. 'You see, he is an old schoolfellow of mine, after all;
but there is another way of getting rid of him which I shall try; and
that will do it.' I was not a little surprised when, the next morning,
my uncle received the schoolfellow with open arms and talked to him
unceasingly, saying how delighted he was to see him, and go back
over the old days with him. All the old school-day stories which
the schoolfellow was incessantly in the habit of repeating, and
re-repeating, till they became intolerable to listen to, now poured
from my uncle's lips in a resistless cataract, no that the visitor
could not escape them. And all the while my uncle kept asking him,
'What is the matter with you to-day? You don't seem happy. You are so
monosyllabic. Do be jolly! Let us have a regular feast of old stories
to-day.' But the moment the schoolfellow opened his lips to speak my
uncle would cut him short with some interminable tale. At last the
affair became so unendurable to him that he wanted to cut and run. But
my uncle so pressed him to stay to lunch and dinner, that, unable to
resist the temptation of the good dishes, and better wine, he did stay.
But scarce had he swallowed a mouthful of soup when my uncle, in
extreme indignation, cried, 'What in the devil's name is this infernal
mess? Don't touch any more of it, brother, I beg you; there's something
better to come. Take those plates away, John!' Like a flash of
lightning the plate was swept away from under the school-friend's nose.
It was the same thing with all the dishes and courses, though they were
of a nature sufficiently to excite the appetite, till the 'something
better to come' resolved itself into Cheshire cheese, which of all
cheeses the school-friend hated the most, although he disliked all
cheese. From an apparently ardent endeavour to set before him an
unusually good dinner he had not been suffered to swallow two
mouthfuls; and it was much the same with the wine. Scarce had he put a