sir. I went there last winter, and I believe it made me worse. I don’t want to be always seeing sick people in invalid chairs, and be always hearing them talk about their doctors. How long shall you be gone, sir?”
“How long? I don’t know, my lad. Why?”
The boy was silent, and lay back gazing out of the window in a dreamy way for some moments before he spoke again, and then his hearers were startled by his words.
“I feel,” he said, speaking as if to himself, “as if I should soon get better if I could go to a land where the sun shone, and the sea was blue, and the sweet soft cool breezes blew down from the mountains that tower up into the clear sky—where there were fresh things to see, and there would be none of this dreadful winter fog.”
The professor and the lawyer exchanged glances, and the latter took a great pinch of snuff out of his box, and held it half-way up towards his nose.
Then he started, and let it fall upon the carpet—so much brown dust, for the boy suddenly changed his tone, and in a quick excited manner exclaimed, as he started forward:
“Oh! Mr. Preston, pray—pray—take me with you when you go.”
“But, my dear boy,” faltered the professor, “I am not going now. I have altered my plans.”
“Then I must stop here,” cried the boy in a passionate wailing tone—“stop here and die.”
There was a dead silence once more as the lad covered his face with his thin hands, only broken by Mrs. Dunn’s sobs as she laid her head upon the back of the chair and wept aloud, while directly after Mr. Burne took out his yellow handkerchief, prepared for a blow, and finally delivered himself of a mild and gentle sniff.
“Lawrence!”
It was the deep low utterance of a strong man who was deeply moved, and as the boy let fall his thin white fingers from before his eyes he saw that the professor was kneeling by his chair ready to take one of his hands and hold it between his broad palms.
“Lawrence, my boy,” he said; “your poor father and I were great friends, and he was to me as a brother; your mother as a sister. He left me as it were the care and charge of you, and it seems to me that in my selfish studies I have neglected my trust; but, Heaven helping me, my boy, I will try and make up for the past. You shall so with me, my dear lad, and we will search till we find a place that shall restore you to health and strength.”
“You will take me with you?” cried the boy with a joyous light in his eyes.
“That I will,” cried the professor.
“And when?”
“As soon as you can be moved.”
“But,” sighed the lad wearily, “it will cost so much.”
“Well?” said the professor, “What of that? I am not a poor man. I never spend my money.”
“Oh! if it came to that,” said the lawyer, taking some more snuff and snapping his fingers, “young Lawrence here has a pretty good balance lying idle.”
“Mr. Burne, for shame!” cried Mrs. Dunn; “here have I been waiting to hear you speak, and you encourage the wild idea, instead of stamping upon it like a black beadle.”
“Wild idea, ma’am?” cried the lawyer, blowing a defiant blast.
“Yes, sir; to talk about taking that poor weak sickly boy off into foreign lands among savages, and cannibals, and wild beasts, and noxious reptiles.”
“Stuff, ma’am, stuff!”
“But it isn’t stuff, sir. The doctor said—”
“Hang the doctor, ma’am!” cried the lawyer. “The doctor can’t cure him, poor lad, so let’s see if we can’t do a little better.”
“Why, I believe you approve of it, sir!” cried Mrs. Dunn with a horror-stricken look.
“Approve of it, ma’am? To be sure, I do. The very thing. Asia Minor, didn’t you say, Mr. Preston?”
The professor bowed.
“Yes; I’ve heard that you get summer weather there in winter. I think you have hit the right nail on the head.”
“And you approve of it, sir?” cried the boy excitedly.
“To be sure, I do, my lad.”
“It will kill him,” said Mrs. Dunn emphatically.
“Tchah! stuff and nonsense, ma’am!” cried the lawyer. “The boy’s too young and tough to kill. We’ll take him out there and make a man of him.”
“We, sir?” exclaimed the professor.
“Yes, sir, we,” said the lawyer, taking some more snuff, and dusting his black waistcoat. “Hang it all! Do you think you are the only man in England who wants a holiday?”
“I beg your pardon,” said the professor mildly; “of course not.”
“I haven’t had one worth speaking of,” continued Mr. Burne, “for nearly—no, quite thirty years, and all that time I’ve been in dingy stuffy Sergeant’s Inn, sir. Yes; we’ll go travelling, professor, and bring him back a man.”
“It will kill him,” cried Mrs. Dunn fiercely, and ruffling up and coming forward like an angry hen in defence of her solitary chick, the last the rats had left.
The lawyer sounded his trumpet, as if summoning his forces to a charge.
“I say he shall not go.”
“Mrs. Dunn,” began the professor blandly.
“Stop!” cried the lawyer; “send for Doctor Shorter.”
“But he has been, sir,” remonstrated Mrs. Dunn.
“Then let him come again, ma’am. He shall have his fee,” cried the lawyer; “send at once.”
Mrs. Dunn’s lips parted to utter a protest, but the lawyer literally drove her from the room, and then turned back, taking snuff outrageously, to where the professor was now seated beside the sick lad.
“That’s routing the enemy,” cried the lawyer fiercely. “Why, confound the woman! She told me that the doctor said he ought to be taken to a milder clime.”
“But do you really mean, Mr. Burne, that, supposing the doctor gives his consent, you would accompany us abroad?”
“To be sure I do, sir, and I mean to make myself as unpleasant as I can. I’ve a right to do so, haven’t I.”
“Of course,” said the professor coldly.
“And I’ve a right to make myself jolly if I like, haven’t I, sir?”
“Certainly,”
