He had a word of
contempt for the whole crowd of poets, painters, fiddlers, and their
admirers, the bastard race of amateurs, which was continually on his
lips. "Signor Feedle-eerie!" he would say. "O, for Goad's sake, no
more of the Signor!"
"You and my father are great friends, are you not?" asked Archie once.
"There is no man that I more respect, Archie," replied Lord Glenalmond.
"He is two things of price. He is a great lawyer, and he is upright as
the day."
"You and he are so different," said the boy, his eyes dwelling on those
of his old friend, like a lover's on his mistress's.
"Indeed so," replied the judge; "very different. And so I fear are you
and he. Yet I would like it very ill if my young friend were to
misjudge his father. He has all the Roman virtues: Cato and Brutus were
such; I think a son's heart might well be proud of such an ancestry of
one."
"And I would sooner he were a plaided herd," cried Archie, with sudden
bitterness.
"And that is neither very wise, nor I believe entirely true," returned
Glenalmond.
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