human
How do you do? So glad!
gpt
I beg your pardon. I didn't hear you come in.
human
Not at all! Sit, please.
gpt
You are well? So glad!
human
I don't know, said Vendale, after exchange of salutations,
gpt
Ah, yes!
human
In connection with Wilding and Co.?
gpt
Ah, surely!
human
Is it not odd that I should come to you, in London here, as one of the Firm of Wilding and Co., to pay the Firm's respects?
gpt
Not at all! What did I always observe when we were on the mountains? We call them vast; but the world is so little. So little is the world, that one cannot keep away from persons. There are so few persons in the world, that they continually cross and re-cross. So very little is the world, that one cannot get rid of a person. Not, touching his elbows again, with an ingratiatory smile,
human
I hope not, M. Obenreizer.
gpt
Please call me, in your country, Mr. I call myself so, for I love your country. If I _could_ be English! But I am born. And you? Though descended from so fine a family, you have had the condescension to come into trade? Stop though. Wines? Is it trade in England or profession? Not fine art?
human
Mr. Obenreizer, returned Vendale, somewhat out of countenance,
gpt
I was but a silly young fellow, just of age, when I first had the pleasure of travelling with you, and when you and I and Mademoiselle your niece--who is well?
human
Thank you. Who is well.
gpt
You make too much of it, returned the Swiss.
human
And what the devil! After all, yours _was_ a fine family.
gpt
Well! I was strongly attached to my parents, and when we first travelled together, Mr. Obenreizer, I was in the first flush of coming into what my father and mother left me. So I hope it may have been, after all, more youthful openness of speech and heart than boastfulness.
human
All openness of speech and heart! No boastfulness! cried Obenreizer.
gpt
You tax yourself too heavily. You tax yourself, my faith! as if you was your Government taxing you! Besides, it commenced with me. I remember, that evening in the boat upon the lake, floating among the reflections of the mountains and valleys, the crags and pine woods, which were my earliest remembrance, I drew a word-picture of my sordid childhood. Of our poor hut, by the waterfall which my mother showed to travellers; of the cow-shed where I slept with the cow; of my idiot half-brother always sitting at the door, or limping down the Pass to beg; of my half-sister always spinning, and resting her enormous goitre on a great stone; of my being a famished naked little wretch of two or three years, when they were men and women with hard hands to beat me, I, the only child of my father's second marriage--if it even was a marriage. What more natural than for you to compare notes with me, and say, 'We are as one by age; at that same time I sat upon my mother's lap in my father's carriage, rolling through the rich English streets, all luxury surrounding me, all squalid poverty kept far from me. Such is _my_ earliest remembrance as opposed to yours!'