"It's quite a new effect, so," said the nimble book-keeper.
"Well," said I, "Stunning failed?"
"Oh yes, smashed all up, and the castle in Spain came down about his
ears with a tremendous crash. The family sugar was all dissolved into
the original cane in a moment. Fairy-times are over, are they?
Heigh-ho! the falling stones of Stunning's castle have left their
marks all over his face. I call them his Spanish scars."
"But, my dear Titbottom," said I, "what is the matter with you this
morning, your usual sedateness is quite gone?"
"It's only the exhilarating air of Spain," he answered. "My castles
are so beautiful that I can never think of them, nor speak of them,
without excitement; when I was younger I desired to reach them even
more ardently than now, because I heard that the philosopher's stone
was in the vault of one of them."
"Indeed," said I, yielding to sympathy, "and I have good reason to
believe that the fountain of eternal youth flows through the garden of
one of mine. Do you know whether there are any children upon your
grounds?"
"'The children of Alice call Bartrum father!'" replied Titbottom,
solemnly, and in a low voice, as he folded his faded hands before him,
and stood erect, looking wistfully over the landscape.
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