“Why, why, why, what are you laughing at, my dear boy,” said Hippias, and was provoked by the contagious exercise to a modest “ha! ha!”

“Why, what are you laughing at, uncle?” cried Richard.

“I really don’t know,” Hippias chuckled.

“Nor I, uncle!  Sing, cuckoo!”

They laughed themselves into the pleasantest mood imaginable.  Hippias not only came aboveground, he flew about in the very skies, verting like any blithe creature of the season.  He remembered old legal jokes, and anecdotes of Circuit; and Richard laughed at them all, but more at him—­ he was so genial, and childishly fresh, and innocently joyful at his own transformation, while a lurking doubt in the bottom of his eyes, now and then, that it might not last, and that he must go underground again, lent him a look of pathos and humour which tickled his youthful companion irresistibly, and made his heart warm to him.

“I tell you what, uncle,” said Richard, “I think travelling’s a capital thing.”

“The best thing in the world, my dear boy,” Hippias returned.  “It makes me wish I had given up that Work of mine, and tried it before, instead of chaining myself to a task.  We’re quite different beings in a minute.  I am.  Hem! what shall we have for dinner?”

“Leave that to me, uncle.  I shall order for you.  You know, I intend to make you well.  How gloriously we go along!  I should like to ride on a railway every day.”

Hippias remarked:  “They say it rather injures the digestion.”

“Nonsense! see how you’ll digest to-night and to-morrow.”

“Perhaps I shall do something yet,” sighed Hippias, alluding to the vast literary fame he had aforetime dreamed of.  “I hope I shall have a good night to-night.”

“Of course you will!  What! after laughing like that?”

“Ugh!” Hippias grunted, “I daresay, Richard, you sleep the moment you get into bed!”

“The instant my head’s on my pillow, and up the moment I wake.  Health’s everything!”

“Health’s everything!” echoed Hippias, from his immense distance.

“And if you’ll put yourself in my hands,” Richard continued, “you shall do just as I do.  You shall be well and strong, and sing ‘Jolly!’ like Adrian’s blackbird.  You shall, upon my honour, uncle!”

He specified the hours of devotion to his uncle’s recovery—­no less than twelve a day—­that he intended to expend, and his cheery robustness almost won his uncle to leap up recklessly and clutch health as his own.

“Mind,” quoth Hippias, with a half-seduced smile, “mind your dishes are not too savoury!”

“Light food and claret!  Regular meals and amusement!  Lend your heart to all, but give it to none!” exclaims young Wisdom, and Hippias mutters, “Yes! yes!” and intimates that the origin of his malady lay in his not following that maxim earlier.

“Love ruins us, my dear boy,” he said, thinking to preach Richard a lesson, and Richard boisterously broke out: