"A good thing too. It'd have been a good thing if it had been
the death of both of them. I've no bowels for such tomfoolery.
Where is she? What's she doing? Is she married to the other
fool? If she is, don't they both wish that they were dead?"
"You've a sharp tongue, Andrew--if your wits were like it! Not
all married folks wish that they were dead; there's just as much
desire to live among the married as among the single--maybe
more. To hear you talk one would suppose that one had only to
remain single to be happy. You and I know better than that."
"Speak for yourself, David, speak for yourself--I'm happy
enough."
"Then your looks belie you."
"What's the matter with my looks, you old croaker?"
"I'm a doctor of medicine, Andrew McTavish; I've learned to turn
the smoothest side to a patient; so you must excuse me if to
your inquiry I return no answer."
"After the dinner I've given him!"
"It's the ill-assorted food you have caused me to cram down my
throat that I'm beginning to fancy has given me a touch of the
spleen."
"Something has. The next time you dine in this house it will be
off porridge."
"We'll leave the next time till it comes. To return to Margaret
Wallace. She's not married yet, and, so far as I can judge,
she's not likely to be. It's want of pence, both with him and
with her. If she had some of Cuthbert Grahame's money, as she
ought to have, it'd make all the difference."
"It's in part your fault that she hasn't."
"I'm not denying it, and I'm not forgetting it. If I've been
guilty of the unforgivable sin, it was when I brought that woman
to Cuthbert Grahame's bedside. I sometimes think that I'll see
it chalked up against me in letters of fire when I'm brought up
before the throne."
"Stuff!"
"Maybe--to you. You're devoid of decent feeling, Andrew
McTavish; to you all's stuff. What's become of the woman?"
"What woman?"
"She who calls herself Mrs. Grahame?"
"She calls herself Mrs. Grahame no longer."
"How's that?"
"She's married again."
"The creature! The poor fool she's married! What is his name?"
"Gregory Lamb."
Dr. Twelves rose from his chair as if impelled by a spring.
Opening his mouth in apparent forgetfulness of what was between
his lips, his cigar fell to the floor, where it remained
apparently unnoticed.
"What's that?"
"What's what?"
"What name was that you said?"
"Why, man, what's the matter now? I'm wondering whether the
sucking-pig's mounted to your head instead of descending to your
stomach. David, you're easily upset these days. Pick up your
cigar, it's burning a hole in my floor covering."
"Damn the cigar!"
"And welcome! It's not that I mind. What I object to is your
cigar damning my carpet. Pick it up at once, sir."
"You're fussy about your old carpet."
"Old carpet! it cost me a guinea a yard not twelve months
since."
"You're wasteful with your money."
"I am, when I spend it entertaining such as you."
"What's the name of the man you say that woman married?"
"Gregory Lamb."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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