"'New specimen from our cliff, sir,' I said. 'I hope it may induce you to prolong your stay.' "And really for a moment, he looked puzzled, and I made sure of having fetched him. Then he stood up, and put his hand upon my shoulder; and you should have seen the laugh in his great eyes. "'I hope, my young friend, you will retire from the House, when the question of our next grant is discussed,' he said; 'I shall put this in a case, as a great curiosity; and label it "_Specimen of a Conservative M.P._" The inversion, and the petrification, are the leading features of the type.' "What do you think of that now, Tommy?" "Well, I think that it served you most splendidly right, and will teach you how to play tricks with great men. I should like to have seen you, with his strong hand on your shoulder." "Come, if you can laugh like that, you heartless radical, there can't be much the matter with your inner parts, unless it is your heartless heart. And very little wrong with your outward either, to judge by the colour on your cheeks, when I came in. You were as bright, as 'a red red rose newly blown in June.'" "Because your sweet sister had just been with me," thought I; but I only said, "Yes, I am a little better. My strength is coming back to me gradually, I believe. With your dear mother's wonderful kindness, and the help of a good constitution, I hope to be toddling about as usual, before very long. But Professor Megalow says, that I must shun most carefully every possible form of excitement." "No doubt of that. But you appeared to me to be in a state of excitement, when I came in. And there was somebody going down the other stairs, I thought; a quick light foot it seemed to be." "There are so many echoes in this house," I answered, throwing one weary arm across my face; "if you had only got to keep in one room, and listen to them, hour after hour, as I have got to do, you would find out that a very little thing excites one."