The Professor Read Online Free PDF Page A

edged off sideways. I had
already noticed that Mr. Hunsden indulged in abrupt forms of
speech, and I perversely said to myself—
    "He thinks he may speak as he likes to a poor clerk; but my mood
is not, perhaps, so supple as he deems it, and his rough freedom
pleases me not at all."
    I made some slight reply, rather indifferent than courteous, and
continued to move away. He coolly planted himself in my path.
    "Stay here awhile," said he: "it is so hot in the dancing-room;
besides, you don't dance; you have not had a partner to-night."
    He was right, and as he spoke neither his look, tone, nor manner
displeased me; my AMOUR-PROPRE was propitiated; he had not
addressed me out of condescension, but because, having repaired
to the cool dining-room for refreshment, he now wanted some one
to talk to, by way of temporary amusement. I hate to be
condescended to, but I like well enough to oblige; I stayed.
    "That is a good picture," he continued, recurring to the
portrait.
    "Do you consider the face pretty?" I asked.
    "Pretty! no—how can it be pretty, with sunk eyes and hollow
cheeks? but it is peculiar; it seems to think. You could have a
talk with that woman, if she were alive, on other subjects than
dress, visiting, and compliments."
    I agreed with him, but did not say so. He went on.
    "Not that I admire a head of that sort; it wants character and
force; there's too much of the sen-si-tive (so he articulated it,
curling his lip at the same time) in that mouth; besides, there
is Aristocrat written on the brow and defined in the figure; I
hate your aristocrats."
    "You think, then, Mr. Hunsden, that patrician descent may be read
in a distinctive cast of form and features?"
    "Patrician descent be hanged! Who doubts that your lordlings may
have their 'distinctive cast of form and features' as much as we
—shire tradesmen have ours? But which is the best? Not theirs
assuredly. As to their women, it is a little different: they
cultivate beauty from childhood upwards, and may by care and
training attain to a certain degree of excellence in that point,
just like the oriental odalisques. Yet even this superiority is
doubtful. Compare the figure in that frame with Mrs. Edward
Crimsworth—which is the finer animal?"
    I replied quietly: "Compare yourself and Mr. Edward Crimsworth,
Mr Hunsden."
    "Oh, Crimsworth is better filled up than I am, I know besides he
has a straight nose, arched eyebrows, and all that; but these
advantages—if they are advantages—he did not inherit from his
mother, the patrician, but from his father, old Crimsworth, who,
MY father says, was as veritable a —shire blue-dyer as ever
put indigo in a vat yet withal the handsomest man in the three
Ridings. It is you, William, who are the aristocrat of your
family, and you are not as fine a fellow as your plebeian brother
by long chalk."
    There was something in Mr. Hunsden's point-blank mode of speech
which rather pleased me than otherwise because it set me at my
ease. I continued the conversation with a degree of interest.
    "How do you happen to know that I am Mr. Crimsworth's brother? I
thought you and everybody else looked upon me only in the light
of a poor clerk."
    "Well, and so we do; and what are you but a poor clerk? You do
Crimsworth's work, and he gives you wages—shabby wages they are,
too."
    I was silent. Hunsden's language now bordered on the
impertinent, still his manner did not offend me in the least—it
only piqued my curiosity; I wanted him to go on, which he did in
a little while.
    "This world is an absurd one," said he.
    "Why so, Mr. Hunsden?"
    I wonder you should ask: you are yourself a strong proof of the
absurdity I allude to."
    I was determined he should explain himself of his own accord,
without my pressing him so to do—so I resumed my silence.
    "Is it your intention to become a tradesman?" he inquired
presently.
    "It was my serious intention three months ago."
    "Humph! the more fool you—you look like a tradesman! What a
practical