'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.
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