The Duke broke down completely as he remembered his life at Dartmoor, and Mr. Windsor looked out of the window to conceal the smile which this picture of his venerable old friend brought to his mind. The Duke, after vigorously rubbing his spectacles and clearing his throat, remarked:
"Excuse my stopping, Mr. Windsor, but poor Sydney's handwriting never was good. I remember I used to tell him, when he answered my invitations, that I should have imagined that a fly dipped in ink had crawled over the paper." He laughed for a moment at his former moss-encrusted and ducal witticism, and continued reading Sydney's letter;
"However, I have become resigned. I was born under an unlucky star, and the uninvited bad fairy at my christening, after the others had given me beauty, riches, and wit, hopped in malevolently upon her crutch and shouted in a disagreeable falsetto: 'He shall have all these, to be sure, but he shall have a poor digestion and the gout!' and whirled away on the evening wind astride her broomstick."
Mr. Windsor laughed out loud; the Duke seemed annoyed at this, and, begging not to be interrupted again, continued his reading in a rather offended tone:
