Page 121 - bleak-house

Skimpole presently appeared, and Richard shortly after
him. I was sufficiently engaged during the remainder of the
evening in taking my first lesson in backgammon from Mr.
Jarndyce, who was very fond of the game and from whom
I wished of course to learn it as quickly as I could in order
that I might be of the very small use of being able to play
when he had no better adversary. But I thought, occasion-
ally, when Mr. Skimpole played some fragments of his own
compositions or when, both at the piano and the violon-
cello, and at our table, he preserved with an absence of all
effort his delightful spirits and his easy flow of conversa-
tion, that Richard and I seemed to retain the transferred
impression of having been arrested since dinner and that it
was very curious altogether.
It was late before we separated, for when Ada was going
at eleven o’clock, Mr. Skimpole went to the piano and rat-
tled hilariously that the best of all ways to lengthen our days
was to steal a few hours from night, my dear! It was past
twelve before he took his candle and his radiant face out of
the room, and I think he might have kept us there, if he had
seen fit, until daybreak. Ada and Richard were lingering for
a few moments by the fire, wondering whether Mrs. Jellyby
had yet finished her dictation for the day, when Mr. Jarn-
dyce, who had been out of the room, returned.
‘Oh, dear me, what’s this, what’s this!’ he said, rubbing
his head and walking about with his good-humoured vex-
ation. ‘What’s this they tell me? Rick, my boy, Esther, my
dear, what have you been doing? Why did you do it? How
could you do it? How much apiece was it? The wind’s round

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