He remembered how he
had heard me describe the game of chess I had played with the Doctor
in days gone by, and with his mind's ear seemed to hear Miss Skinner
saying, as though it were an epitaph:
"Stay:
I may presently take
A simple chord of Beethoven
Or a small semiquaver
From one of Mendelssohn's Songs without Words."
After luncheon when Ernest was left alone for half an hour or so
with the Dean he plied him so well with compliments that the old
gentleman was pleased and flattered beyond his wont. He rose and
bowed. "These expressions," he said, voce sua, "are very valuable to
me." "They are but a small part, sir," rejoined Ernest, "of what any
one of your old pupils must feel towards you." and the pair danced
as it were a minuet at end of the dining-room table in front of the
old bay window that looked upon the smooth shaven lawn. On this Ernest
departed; but a few days afterwards, the Doctor wrote him a letter and
told him that his critics were sklerhoi kai antitupoi, and at the same
time anekplektoi. Ernest remembered sklerhoi, and knew that the
other words were something of like nature, so it was all right.
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