Dear, unknown, imaginary eye--which never was and never will be--yet which I like to fancy shining somewhere in the clouds, out of Jupiter, Venus, or the Georgium Sidus, upon this solitary me--the foregoing sentence bears no reference to you. "Treherne," I said, "whatever good opinion your father is pleased to hold as to my wisdom, I certainly do not share in one juvenile folly--that, being a very well-meaning fellow on the whole, I take the greatest pains to make myself out a scamp." The youth coloured. "That's me, of course." "Wear the cap if it feels comfortable. And now, will you have some tea?" "Anything--I feel as thirsty as when you found me dragging myself to the brink of the Tchernaya. Hey, Doctor, it would have saved me a deal of bother if you had never found me at all. Except that it would vex the old governor to end the name and have the property all going to the dogs,--that is, to Cousin Charteris; who would not care how soon I was dead and buried." "_Were_ dead and buried, if you please." "Confound it, to stop a man about his grammar when he is in my state of mind! Kept from his cigar, too! Doctor, you never were in love, or you never were a smoker." "How do you know?" "Because you never could have given up the one or the other; a fellow can't; 'tis an impossibility." "Is it? I once smoked six cigars a day, for two years." "Eh, what? And you never let that out before? You are so close! Possibly, the other fact will peep out in time Mrs. Urquhart and half-a-dozen brats may be living in some out-of-the-way nook--Cornwall, or Jersey, or the centre of Salisbury Plain. Why, what?--nay, I beg your pardon, Doctor." What a horrible thing it is that by no physical effort, added to years of mental self-control, can I so harden my nerves that certain words, names, suggestions, shall not startle me--make me quiver as if under the knife. Doubtless, Treherne will henceforth retain--so far as his easy mind can retain anything--the idea that I have a wife and family hidden somewhere! Ludicrous idea, if it were not connected with other ideas from which, however, this one will serve to turn his mind. To explain it away was of course impossible. I had only power to slip from the subject with a laugh, and bring him back to the tobacco question. "Yes; I smoked six cigars a-day for at least two years." "And gave it up? Wonderful!" "Not very, when a man has a will of his own, and a few strong reasons to back it." "Out with them--not that they will benefit me however--I'm quite incorrigible." "Doubtless. First, I was a poor medical student, and six cigars per diem cost fourteen shillings a-week,--thirty-(six) pounds, eight shillings, a-year. A good sum to give for an artificial want--enough to have fed and clothed a child." "You're weak on the point of brats, Urquhart. Do you remember the little Russ we picked up in the cellar at Sebastopol? I do believe you'd have adopted and brought it home with you if it had not died."