of all—”
“Tut tut! hold your tongue, Mrs. Dunn, what’s gone by can’t be recalled. I’ve been very busy lately fighting a cousin of the poor boy, who was trying to get his money.”
“And what’s the good of his money, sir, if he isn’t going to live?”
“Tut tut, Mrs. Dunn,” said the lawyer, blowing his nose more softly, “but he is. I telegraphed to Oxford last night for Professor Preston to meet me here at eleven this morning. I have had no answer, but he may come. Eccentric man, Mrs. Dunn.”
“Why you’re never going to have him here to talk the poor boy to death.”
“Indeed but I am, Mrs. Dunn, for I do not believe what you say is possible, unless done by a woman—an old woman,” said the lawyer looking at the old lady fixedly.
“Well I’m sure!” exclaimed Mrs. Dunn, and the doctor rose.
“You had better get that prescription made up, Mrs. Dunn, and go on as before.”
“One moment, doctor,” said the lawyer, and he drew him aside for a brief conversation to ensue.
“Bless me! very sad,” said the lawyer; and then, as Mrs. Dunn showed the doctor out, the old gentleman took some more snuff, and then performed upon his nose in one of the windows; opposite the fire; in one corner; then in another; and then he was finishing with a regular coach-horn blast when he stopped half-way, and stared, for Mrs. Dunn was standing in the doorway with her large florid cap tilted forward in consequence of her having stuck her fingers in her ears.
“Could you hear me using my handkerchief, Mrs. Dunn?” said the lawyer.
“Could I hear you? Man alive!” cried the old lady, in a tone full of withering contempt, “could I hear that!”
Chapter Two.
The Second Guardian.
“That!” to which Mrs. Dunn alluded was a double knock at the front door; a few minutes later the maid ushered in a tall broad-shouldered man of about forty. His hair was thin upon the crown, but crisp and grizzled, and its spareness seemed due to the fact that nature required so much stuff to keep up the supply for his tremendous dark beard that his head ran short. It was one of those great beards that are supposed to go with the portrait of some old patriarch, and over this could be seen a pair of beautiful large clear eyes that wore a thoughtful dreamy aspect, and a broad high white forehead. He was rather shabbily dressed in a pepper-and-salt frock-coat, vest, and trousers, one of which had been turned up as if to keep it out of the mud while the other was turned down; and both were extremely baggy and worn about the knees. Judging from appearances his frock-coat might have been brushed the week before last, but it was doubtful, though his hat, which he placed upon the table as he entered, certainly had been brushed very lately, but the wrong way.
He did not wear gloves upon his hands, but in his trousers pockets, from which he pulled them to throw them in his hat, after he had carefully placed two great folio volumes, each minus one cover, upon a chair, and then he shook hands, smiling blandly, with Mrs. Dunn, and with the lawyer.
“Bless the man!” said Mrs. Dunn to herself, “one feels as if one couldn’t be cross with him; and there’s a button off the wrist-band of his shirt.”
“ ’Fraid you had not received my telegram, sir,” said the lawyer in rather a contemptuous tone, for Mrs. Dunn had annoyed him, and he wanted to wreak his irritation upon someone else.
“Telegram?” said the professor dreamily. “Oh, yes. It was forwarded to me from Oxford. I was in town.”
“Oh! In town?”
“Yes. At an hotel in Craven Street. I am making preparations, you know, for my trip.”
“No, I don’t know,” said the lawyer snappishly. “How should I know?”
“Of course not,” said the professor smiling. “The fact is, I’ve been so much—among books—lately—that—these are fine. Picked them up at a little shop near the Strand. Buttknow’s Byzantine Empire.”
He picked up the two musty old volumes, and opened them upon the table, as a blast rang out.
The professor started and stared, his dreamy eyes opening wider, but seeing that it was only the lawyer blowing his nose, he smiled and turned over a few leaves.
“A good deal damaged; but such a book is very rare, sir.”
“My dear sir, I asked you to come here to talk business,” said the lawyer, tapping the table with his snuff-box, “not books.”
“True. I beg your pardon,” said the professor. “I was in town making the final preparations for my departure to the Levant, and I did not receive the telegram till this morning. That made me so late.”
“Humph!” ejaculated the lawyer, and he took some more snuff.
“And how is Lawrence this morning?” said the professor in his calm, mild way. “I hope better, Mrs. Dunn.”
“Bless the man! No. He is worse,” cried Mrs. Dunn shortly.
“Dear me! I am very sorry. Poor boy! I’m afraid I have neglected him. His poor father was so kind to me.”
“Everybody has neglected him, sir,” cried Mrs. Dunn, “and the doctor says that the poor boy will die.”
“Mrs. Dunn, you shock me,” cried the professor, with the tears in his eyes, and his whole manner changing. “Is it so bad as this?”
“Quite, sir,” cried the lawyer, “and I want to consult you as my co-executor and trustee about getting the boy somewhere in the south of England or to France.”
“But medical assistance,” said the professor. “We must have the best skill in London.”
“He has had it, sir,” cried Mrs. Dunn, “and they can’t do anything for him. He’s in a decline.”
“There, sir, you hear,” said the lawyer. “Now, then, what’s to be done?”
“Done!” cried the professor, with a display of animation that surprised the others. “He must be removed to a warmer country at once. I had no idea that matters were so bad as this. Mr. Burne, Mrs. Dunn, I am a student much interested in a work I am writing on the Byzantine empire, and I was starting in a few days for Asia Minor. My passage was taken. But all that must be set aside, and I will stop and see to my dear old friend’s son.”
Poo woomp poomp. Pah!
Mr. Burne blew a perfectly triumphal blast with his pocket-handkerchief, took out his snuff-box, put it back, jumped up, and, crossing to where the professor was standing, shook his hand very warmly, and without a word, while Mrs. Dunn wiped her eyes upon her very stiff watered silk apron, but found the result so unsatisfactory that she smoothed it down, and hunted
