Page 293 - bleak-house

‘My dear boy,’ returned his father, ‘you must be very
quick. You will find the cold mutton on the table.’
‘Thank you, father. Are YOU off now, father?’
‘Yes, my dear. I suppose,’ said Mr. Turveydrop, shutting
his eyes and lifting up his shoulders with modest conscious-
ness, ‘that I must show myself, as usual, about town.’
‘You had better dine out comfortably somewhere,’ said
his son.
‘My dear child, I intend to. I shall take my little meal, I
think, at the French house, in the Opera Colonnade.’
‘That’s right. Good-bye, father!’ said Prince, shaking
hands.
‘Good-bye, my son. Bless you!’
Mr. Turveydrop said this in quite a pious manner, and it
seemed to do his son good, who, in parting from him, was
so pleased with him, so dutiful to him, and so proud of him
that I almost felt as if it were an unkindness to the younger
man not to be able to believe implicitly in the elder. The few
moments that were occupied by Prince in taking leave of us
(and particularly of one of us, as I saw, being in the secret),
enhanced my favourable impression of his almost childish
character. I felt a liking for him and a compassion for him
as he put his little kit in his pocket—and with it his desire
to stay a little while with Caddy—and went away good-hu-
mouredly to his cold mutton and his school at Kensington,
that made me scarcely less irate with his father than the
censorious old lady.
The father opened the room door for us and bowed us
out in a manner, I must acknowledge, worthy of his shin-

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