? ? ? ? 'If you will take such time as I have, and that is my mornings and evenings, and can think it worth seventy pounds a year, you will do me such a service as I cannot express.'
? ? ? ? 'Dear me!' said the Doctor, innocently. 'To think that so little should go for so much! Dear, dear! And when you can do better, you will? On your word, now?' said the Doctor, - which he had always made a very grave appeal to the honour of us boys.
? ? ? ? 'On my word, sir!' I returned, answering in our old school manner.
? ? ? ? 'Then be it so,' said the Doctor, clapping me on the shoulder, and still keeping his hand there, as we still walked up and down.
? ? ? ? 'And I shall be twenty times happier, sir,' said I, with a little - I hope innocent - flattery, 'if my employment is to be on the Dictionary.'
? ? ? ? The Doctor stopped, smilingly clapped me on the shoulder again, and exclaimed, with a triumph most delightful to behold, as if I had penetrated to the profoundest depths of mortal sagacity, 'My dear young friend, you have hit it. It IS the Dictionary!'
? ? ? ? How could it be anything else! His pockets were as full of it as his head. It was sticking out of him in all directions. He told me that since his retirement from scholastic life, he had been advancing with it wonderfully; and that nothing could suit him better than the proposed arrangements for morning and evening work, as it was his custom to walk about in the daytime with his considering cap on.
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