“Of course they are! The habits of bookworms are always trying! _I’m_ a bookworm. _My_ habits are trying!”
“No, they’re not!” And she linked her arms round his neck and hugged him. “No, Dad, you’re just the dearest and best man in the world to me! You know that, don’t you?”
“Well, you make me believe so!” he answered, submitting to her caresses with a very good grace. “But when the gout is on me--”
“Ah, that’s not _you_!” she declared, lovingly. “That’s the gout _only_! You’re not in it!”
“I wish I were not!” he responded. “But I tell you what, Sylvia,--it’s less violent than it was. Craig has certainly helped me to ignore it--if he hadn’t kept me at work--”
“Ah, yes! ‘The Deterioration of Language!’” smiled Sylvia. “You must both be sorry that it is nearly finished--that great book!”
“It _is_ a great book!” he agreed, triumphantly. “And it’s a book that’s wanted. Language is getting more and more deteriorated every day. When you see the press circulating the vilest slang--such as ‘the blinkin’ this, that, or t’other’--the ‘bally’ rag of some special thing, and women, passing for ‘ladies,’ talk of ‘tommy rot’ in ordinary conversation, surely it’s time some protest was made! A slangy nation is always a decadent one--purity of speech is the result of purity of thought, while coarse language expresses coarseness of mind and morals.”
The old scholar was wandering off on his favourite theme and turned to get a book to confirm what he was saying. His daughter stood watching him for a moment,--then suddenly, in a hushed tone she said:
“Dad, do you think Jack Durham is really killed?”
He looked at her thoughtfully and kindly.
“Do I think so? My dear, I don’t know what to think--but so far as my own impressions go, I rather feel that he’s alive. Of course all the facts are against me,--all the same I cannot realise anything else. It seems to me impossible that he should be dead. I know there are thousands of young fellows like him who are gone--more’s the pity!--but”--here he paused and stretching out a hand drew his daughter tenderly towards him--“I suppose you were really fond of him?”
She hesitated, then spoke in rather a hushed tone.
“Yes, Dad--I think I was,--I think I _am_! And yet--do you know I never thought of being fond of him till your friend, the Philosopher”--and she smiled--“came on the scene. I really was quite taken with _him_!--he rather made a sort of love to me for a time, and I was quite proud that such a clever man should even _seem_ to like me. But after a while, such ugly sides of his character began to show--he could be so rough and rude--and--and--_selfish_! that I began to dislike him, as much as I had once liked him. And Jack--”