"
"I shall stay," said the other, "but there won't be anything casual
about it."
"What do you hear from Tom?" asked the cousin, feeling about on the
mantel for a match. He was a full-bodied, handsome, amiable-looking
old fellow, whose breath came in quick sighs with this light
exertion. He had a blond complexion, and what was left of his hair,
a sort of ethereal down on the top of his head, and some cherished
fringes at the temples, was turning the yellowish grey that blond
hair becomes.
The other gentleman, stretched at ease in a deep chair, with one leg
propped on a cricket, had the distinction of long forms, which the
years had left in their youthful gracility; his snow-white moustache
had been allowed to droop over the handsome mouth, whose teeth were
beginning to go. "They're on the other side of the clock," he said,
referring to the matches. He added, with another glance at his
relative, "Charles, you ought to bant. It's beginning to affect your
wind."
"_Beginning!_ Your memory's going, Bromfield. But they say
there's a new system that allows you to eat everything. I'm waiting
for that. In the meantime, I've gone back to my baccy."
"They've cut mine off," sighed the other. "Doesn't it affect your
heart?"
"Not a bit. But what do you do, now you can't smoke and your eyes
have given out?"
"I bore myself.
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