--Your affectionate Godson, ERNEST PONTIFEX."
Was this the little lad who could get sweeties for two-pence but not for
two-pence-halfpenny? Dear, dear me, I thought to myself, how these babes
and sucklings do give us the go-by surely. Choosing his own epitaph at
fifteen as for a man who "had been very sorry for things," and such a
strain as that--why it might have done for Leonardo da Vinci himself.
Then I set the boy down as a conceited young jackanapes, which no doubt
he was,--but so are a great many other young people of Ernest's age.
CHAPTER XXXVII
If Theobald and Christina had not been too well pleased when Miss
Pontifex first took Ernest in hand, they were still less so when the
connection between the two was interrupted so prematurely. They said
they had made sure from what their sister had said that she was going to
make Ernest her heir. I do not think she had given them so much as a
hint to this effect. Theobald indeed gave Ernest to understand that she
had done so in a letter which will be given shortly, but if Theobald
wanted to make himself disagreeable, a trifle light as air would
forthwith assume in his imagination whatever form was most convenient to
him.
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