Reproduction of the original: Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley by Leonard Huxley

Aged Botanist? marry come up! [Sir J. Hooker jestingly congratulated him on taking up botany in his old age.] I should like to know of a younger spark. The first time I heard myself called "the old gentleman" was years ago when we were in South Devon. A half-drunken Devonian had made himself very offensive, in the compartment in which my wife and I were travelling, and got some "simple Saxon" from me, accompanied, I doubt not, by an awful scowl "Ain't the old gentleman in a rage," says he.

Reproduction of the original.