’Certainly, Mr. Dean.  And tell him that you had the kindness to desire to know how he was?’

’Ay; do so, do so.  Certainly.  Wished to know how he was.  By all means.  Wished to know how he was.’

With a pleasant air of patronage, the Dean as nearly cocks his quaint hat as a Dean in good spirits may, and directs his comely gaiters towards the ruddy dining-room of the snug old red-brick house where he is at present, ‘in residence’ with Mrs. Dean and Miss Dean.

Mr. Crisparkle, Minor Canon, fair and rosy, and perpetually pitching himself head-foremost into all the deep running water in the surrounding country; Mr. Crisparkle, Minor Canon, early riser, musical, classical, cheerful, kind, good-natured, social, contented, and boy-like; Mr. Crisparkle, Minor Canon and good man, lately ‘Coach’ upon the chief Pagan high roads, but since promoted by a patron (grateful for a well-taught son) to his present Christian beat; betakes himself to the gatehouse, on his way home to his early tea.

‘Sorry to hear from Tope that you have not been well, Jasper.’

‘O, it was nothing, nothing!’

‘You look a little worn.’

’Do I?  O, I don’t think so.  What is better, I don’t feel so.  Tope has made too much of it, I suspect.  It’s his trade to make the most of everything appertaining to the Cathedral, you know.’

’I may tell the Dean—­I call expressly from the Dean—­that you are all right again?’

The reply, with a slight smile, is:  ’Certainly; with my respects and thanks to the Dean.’

‘I’m glad to hear that you expect young Drood.’

‘I expect the dear fellow every moment.’

‘Ah!  He will do you more good than a doctor, Jasper.’

’More good than a dozen doctors.  For I love him dearly, and I don’t love doctors, or doctors’ stuff.’

Mr. Jasper is a dark man of some six-and-twenty, with thick, lustrous, well-arranged black hair and whiskers.  He looks older than he is, as dark men often do.  His voice is deep and good, his face and figure are good, his manner is a little sombre.  His room is a little sombre, and may have had its influence in forming his manner.  It is mostly in shadow.  Even when the sun shines brilliantly, it seldom touches the grand piano in the recess, or the folio music-books on the stand, or the book-shelves on the wall, or the unfinished picture of a blooming schoolgirl hanging over the chimneypiece; her flowing brown hair tied with a blue riband, and her beauty remarkable for a quite childish, almost babyish, touch of saucy discontent, comically conscious of itself.  (There is not the least artistic merit in this picture, which is a mere daub; but it is clear that the painter has made it humorously--one might almost say, revengefully—­like the original.)

’We shall miss you, Jasper, at the “Alternate Musical Wednesdays” to-night; but no doubt you are best at home.  Good-night.  God bless you!  “Tell me, shep-herds, te-e-ell me; tell me-e-e, have you seen (have you seen, have you seen, have you seen) my-y-y Flo-o-ora-a pass this way!"’ Melodiously good Minor Canon the Reverend Septimus Crisparkle thus delivers himself, in musical rhythm, as he withdraws his amiable face from the doorway and conveys it down-stairs.