'More than usual?
No, no.

What should there be the matter more than usual ?' Walter answered with an incredulous shake of his head.

'That's what I want to know,' he said, 'and you ask me! I'll tell you what, Uncle, when I see you like this, I am quite sorry that I live with you.' Old Sol opened his eyes involuntarily.
'Yes.

Though nobody ever was happier than I am and always have been with you, I am quite sorry that I live with you, when I see you with anything in your mind.' 'I am a little dull at such times, I know,' observed Solomon, meekly rubbing his hands.
'What I mean, Uncle Sol,' pursued Walter, bending over a little more to pat him on the shoulder, 'is, that then I feel you ought to have, sitting here and pouring out the tea instead of me, a nice little dumpling of a wife, you know,--a comfortable, capital, cosy old lady, who was just a match for you, and knew how to manage you, and keep you in good heart.

Here am I, as loving a nephew as ever was (I am sure I ought to be!) but I am only a nephew, and I can't be such a companion to you when you're low and out of sorts as she would have made herself, years ago, though I'm sure I'd give any money if I could cheer you up.
And so I say, when I see you with anything on your mind, that I feel quite sorry you haven't got somebody better about you than a blundering young rough-and-tough boy like me, who has got the will to console you, Uncle, but hasn't got the way--hasn't got the way,' repeated Walter, reaching over further yet, to shake his Uncle by the hand.
'Wally, my dear boy,' said Solomon, 'if the cosy little old lady had taken her place in this parlour five and forty years ago, I never could have been fonder of her than I am of you.' 'I know that, Uncle Sol,' returned Walter.