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shall do all you want; I have set my heart on spoiling you.'
'I will just take ONE drop more,' said the Admiral, stooping
to help himself to brandy. 'It is surprising how this
journey has fatigued me. But I am growing old, I am growing
old, I am growing old, and - I regret to add - bald.'
He cocked a white wide-awake coquettishly upon his head - the
habit of the lady-killer clung to him; and Esther had already
thrown on her hat, and was ready, while he was still studying
the result in a mirror: the carbuncle had somewhat painfully
arrested his attention.
'
We are papa now; we must be respectable,' he said to Dick,
in explanation of his dandyism: and then he went to a bundle
and chose himself a staff. Where were the elegant canes of
his Parisian epoch? This was a support for age, and designed
for rustic scenes. Dick began to see and appreciate the
man's enjoyment in a new part, when he saw how carefully he
had 'made it up.' He had invented a gait for this first
country stroll with his daughter, which was admirably in key.
He walked with fatigue, he leaned upon the staff; he looked
round him with a sad, smiling sympathy on all that he beheld;
he even asked the name of a plant, and rallied himself gently
for an old town bird, ignorant of nature. 'This country life
will make me young again,' he sighed. They reached the top
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