His son looked at him piteously. To suffer this sea change was bad enough, but to laugh about it was diabolical. Mr. Walkingshaw could not but sober down under such an eye. He gathered his countenance into an aspect as portentously solemn as his dwindled wrinkles could achieve. His son grieved afresh to see how their passing diminished the once overpowering respectability of his parent. "It's an awful predicament," said Mr. Walkingshaw, shaking his bronzing head. "Awful--just awful! What will people say?" "That's just what I've been wondering. How am I going to break it to them?" "You're not going to tell people!" "But they'll notice for themselves." Andrew gazed at him gloomily. "It may pass off,"--his face cleared a little,--"in fact, it's certain to." "It doesn't feel much like it at present: I'm fairly bursting with spirits," smiled Mr. Walkingshaw, and then recollected himself and grew grave again. "What's to be done supposing people do notice?" he asked. "We'll just have to stretch a point," said Andrew somberly, "and give some other explanation." "We might give some decent, respectable doctor the credit for it," his father suggested. "They'd all be afraid to take it, if it went on any further. Imagine a respectable doctor admitting he'd made a man grow younger! I dare say they might be proud of such a performance in London, but they've more decency here!" It seemed characteristic of Mr. Walkingshaw's calamity that he should bounce up like a tennis ball after each well-meant effort to depress him. "In that case," said he cheerfully, "we'll just have to say I am trying to make myself more of a companion for you." Andrew started violently. "We'll say no such thing! Do you suppose _I'm_ going to have my name mixed up with it?" His father remained serene. "Well then, what do you suggest?" Andrew's cheeks drooped, carrying the corners of his mouth down with them. "There's no good in suggesting. You can trust your friends to do that for you. Pretty stories they'll be circulating!" Mr. Walkingshaw regarded him with dignity, mingled with a trace of good-natured contempt for such a lack of spirit. "My dear Andrew," said he, "you need not be under the slightest apprehension. Whatever my external appearance may become--and I trust it will remain not altogether unpleasing--I shall see to it that my conduct rebuts any breath of scandal. I shall be, if possible, more circumspect, more scrupulously observant of the rules which should regulate the behavior of a man in my position, more discreet both in speech and conduct. The tongues of the libelous will be effectually silenced _then_." Mr. Walkingshaw accompanied these excellent sentiments by gently swinging himself to and fro in his revolving chair and rolling a scrap of blotting-paper into a pellet, which, at the conclusion of his speech, he absent-mindedly discharged at the office clock. His son seemed as impressed by these movements as by his words.