You can't be surprised, and I hope you will not be annoyed, if I
say you strike one as not altogether like your calling. No London
groom I have ever spoken to, in the least resembles you. How is
it?"
"I hope you don't mean to imply, sir, that I don't know my business,"
returned Malcolm, laughing.
"Anything but that It were nearer the thing to say, that for all
I know you may understand mine as well."
"I wish I did, sir. Except the pictures at Lossie House and those
in Portland Place, I've never seen one in my life. About most of
them I must say I find it hard to imagine what better the world
is for them. Mr Graham says that no work that doesn't tend to make
the world better makes it richer. If he were a heathen, he says,
he would build a temple to Ses, the sister of Psyche."
"Ses?--I don't remember her," said Lenorme.
"The moth, sir;--'the moth and the rust,' you know."
"Yes, yes; now I know! Capital! Only more things may tend to make
the world better than some people think.--Who is this Mr Graham
of yours? He must be no common man."
"You are right there, sir; there is not another like him in the
whole world, I believe."
And thereupon Malcolm set himself to give the painter an idea of
the schoolmaster.
When they had talked about him for a little while,
"Well, all this accounts for your being a scholar," said Lenorme; "but--"
"I am little enough of that, sir," interrupted Malcolm.
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