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Her affection was very sweet to him, but it could not comfort him. There are few things, indeed, in which the old can be comforted by the young the old, who know too much, both of life and themselves. But he pulled himself together. "Dear Trotty Veck, you must go to bed, and let me do my work. But one moment!"
Neither, worst of all, did it prevent him from dogmatising anywhere and everywhere about the past, of which he knew nothing; it did not prevent him from telling the bells to tell Trotty Veck that the Middle Ages were a failure, nor from solemnly declaring that the best thing that the mediæval monks ever did was to create the mean and snobbish quietude of a modern cathedral city.
King Valoroso, and Bulbo, and Angelica were even more delightful than Scrooge, and Tiny Tim, and Trotty Veck. One remembers the fairy monarch more vividly, and the wondrous array of egg-cups from which he sipped brandy or was it right Nantes? still "going on sipping, I am sorry to say," even after "Valoroso was himself again."
There was more of pathos in this than Murray imagined. There had been no beef on the Merryman table for many moons. "Murray, did you ever eat tripe?" "My dear child " "It sounds dee-licious when Toby Veck has it on a cold morning. And there's the cricket on the hearth and the teakettle singing. I'd love to hear a kettle sing like that, Murray; wouldn't you?" But Murray wouldn't.
But the book she had opened was a volume of Dickens' Christmas stories, and in three minutes she was carried away from the little town of Fairfax to the heart of old London, and from the warmth of spring to the bitterness of winter, as she listened with Toby Veck to the music of the chimes that rang from the belfry tower.
Anne's book was open at the fascinating place where Toby Veck eats his dinner on the church steps; the deep rose-cushioned chair opened its wide arms in comfortable invitation. It was the little girl's first taste of the temptation of ease, and she yielded. But as she picked up her book again, she soothed her conscience with the righteous resolve "I will go to service this afternoon."
He says we are poor now, father, and we shall be poor then, but we are young now, and years will make us old before we know it. He says that if we wait: people in our condition: until we see our way quite clearly, the way will be a narrow one indeed the common way the Grave, father. A bolder man than Trotty Veck must needs have drawn upon his boldness largely, to deny it. Trotty held his peace.
With Hope so young and fresh; with Hope so buoyant, vigorous, and bright, despite the twenty years of work and poverty on which they had looked; that they became a voice to Trotty Veck, and said: 'I think we have some business here a little! Trotty kissed the lips belonging to the eyes, and squeezed the blooming face between his hands. 'Why, Pet, said Trotty. 'What's to do?
Why bless you, my dear, said Toby, pointing at the tower with his fork, and becoming more animated under the influence of dinner, 'how often have I heard them bells say, "Toby Veck, Toby Veck, keep a good heart, Toby! Toby Veck, Toby Veck, keep a good heart, Toby!" A million times? More! 'Well, I never! cried Meg. She had, though over and over again. For it was Toby's constant topic.
Trotty Veck takes his own umbrella from the hall the cotton one; and Sydney Scraper's paletot lined with silk has been brought back by Jobbins, who entirely mistook it for his own. Wiggle has discontinued telling stories about the ladies he has killed. Snooks does not any more think it gentlemanlike to blackball attorneys.
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