I had not your
advantages when I was a young man. The Grand Tour was denied
me; and a country curacy with an increasing family promised to
remove the realization of my dream to the Greek Kalends.
But in all those years I never quite lost sight of it.
There is a bull-dog tenacity in us British: and still from time
to time I renewed the promise to myself that, should I survive
my dear wife--as I hoped to do--'
"Here, having trimmed my lantern, I straightened myself up to
find that Mr. Badcock had returned and was standing behind my
shoulder. To my amazement he was trembling like an aspen.
"'Hush!' said he, when I would have asked what ailed him.
"I listened. I suppose Lord Algernon responded with a polite
hope that Venice fulfilled his uncle's long expectation: but I
could not catch the words.
"'Entirely so,' was the reply. 'I may even say that it surpasses
them. Such an experience enlarges the mind, the--er--outlook.
And if a man of sixty can confess so much, how happy should you
be, my dear Algy, to have received these impressions at _your_
age! Yet, my dear lad, remember they are of value only when
received upon a previous basis of character.
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