Читать книгу Dr. Wainwright's Patient. A Novel онлайн

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The affairs of the house did not suffer by the old gentleman's absence. In his eldest son Paul, on whom the command devolved in his father's absence, the senior partner had a representative possessing all the experience and tact which he had gained, combined with the youth and energy which he had lost. Men of high standing in the City of London, many years his seniors, were glad to know Paul Derinzy, eager to ask his advice, and, what is quite a different matter, frequently not unwilling to take it in regard to the great speculations of the day. The merchants from the North of Europe with whom he transacted business--and to all of whom he spoke in their own language, without the slightest betrayal of foreign accent or lack of idiom--looked upon him as an absolute wonder, more especially when contrasted with his own countrymen, who for the most part spoke nothing but English, and little of that beyond oaths, and spread his renown far and wide. He was a tall, high-shouldered, big-boned man, prematurely bald, and, being very short-sighted, wore a large pair of spectacles, which impelled his younger brother Alexis, then fresh from school, and just received into the counting-house, to be initiated into the mysteries of trade preparatory to being made a partner, to call him "Gig-lamps." Paul Derinzy was not a good-tempered man, and at any time would have disliked this impertinence; but addressed to him as it was, before the clerks, it nettled him exceedingly. He forbade its repetition under pain of summary punishment, and when it was repeated, being a big strong man, he caught his younger brother by the collar, dragged him out of the counting-house to a secluded part of the warehouse, and then and there thrashed him to his heart's content. It was, perhaps, this summary treatment, combined with a dislike for desk-work and indoor confinement, that induced Master Alexis to resign his clerical stool and to suggest to his father the propriety of purchasing for him a commission in the army. Old Derinzy was by no means disposed to act upon this idea, but his wife, who worshipped and spoiled her youngest son, urged it very strongly; and as Paul, who was of course consulted, recommended it as by far the best thing that could be done for his brother, the old gentleman at last gave way, and in a very short time young Alexis was gazetted as cornet in a hussar regiment then on its way home from India, and joined the depot at Canterbury.